Thoracotremata is a clade of crabs, comprising those crabs in which the genital openings in both sexes are on the sternum, rather than on the legs. It comprises 17 families in four superfamilies .[1]
Evolution
Thoracotremata is the sister group to Heterotremata within the clade Eubrachyura, having diverged during the Cretaceous period. Eubrachyura itself is a subset of the larger clade Brachyura, which consists of all "true crabs". A summary of the high-level internal relationships within Brachyura can be shown in the cladogram below:
[2][3]
The internal relationships within Thoracotremata are less certain, with many of the superfamilies found to be invalid. The proposed cladogram below is from analysis by Tsang et al, 2014:[2]
