Thompsoniidae [SEP] parent taxon
Thompsoniidae
The Thompsoniidae are a family of parasitic barnacles belonging to the bizarre and highly apomorphic superorder Rhizocephala, and therein to the more diverse of the two orders, the Akentrogonida.
The Thompsoniidae are one of the smallish families of Rhizocephala, as typical for the Akentrogonida. They only contain four genera, of which two are not universally accepted:
- "Diplothylacus" (disputed)
- "Pottsia" (disputed)
- "Thompsonia"
- "Thylacoplectus"
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of