Stomatopods, or mantis shrimps, are malacostracan crustaceans. Known as “lean, mean, killing machines” (Watling et al., 2000, p. 1), modern stomatopods are obligate carnivores, feeding exclusively on live prey (Schram, 1986). Characteristically, their second thoracic appendages are enlarged to form powerful, raptorial claws. Modern stomatopods are divided into two broad functional groups based on the shape and usage of their raptorial claws: ‘spearing’ and ‘smashing’ stomatopods (Caldwell and Dingle, 1976).

The Genus Micromys includes a single extant species, Micromys minutus (Pallas, 1771), which lives in Europe and North Asia. This genus is known in the fossil record since the late Miocene; eight fossil species have been described in Europe and Asia, most of them of late Miocene and early Pliocene age. The evolution of this genus during the late Pliocene is barely known. Although it is present in numerous localities of this age, remains of Micromys are usually scarce and generally assigned to the species M. minutus or M. praeminutus Kretzoi, 1959.

Turritelline Gastropods (family Turritellidae, subfamily Turritellinae; sensu Marwick, 1957) are common components of many Cretaceous to Recent benthic marine assemblages worldwide. They are frequently the dominant or even the sole macrofossil in such assemblages (Allmon, 1988), termed “turritelline- dominated assemblages” (TDAs; Allmon and Knight, 1993). They are defined as macrofaunal assemblages in which turritelline gastropods: 1) comprise either at least 20% of the total actual or estimated biomass or at least 20% of the macroscopic individuals in the assemblage, and 2) are at least twice as abundant as any other macroscopic species in the assemblage (Allmon, 2007). TDAs have been widely reported from siliciclastic and carbonate sediments of the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains, but turritelline-dominated limestones (sometimes referred to as “turritella limestone” or “turritella rock”) appear to be limited to the Cretaceous and Paleogene (Allmon and Knight, 1993; Allmon, 2007; Allmon and Cohen, 2007).