A new genus and new species of Sphaeromatidae (Crustacea: Isopoda) from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Abstract

Pooredoce garyi gen. nov., sp. nov., is described from Lizard Island, northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The genus is related to the group of sphaeromatid genera characterised by having long 'fi nger-like' extensions to the articles of the maxilliped palp, stout robust setae on the inferior margins of pereopods 1-3 and the uropodal endopod round in section, with the exopod about half as long as the endopod; similar genera are Cymodoce Leach, 1814 (Indo-Pacifi c species), Koremasphaera Bruce, 2003 and Oxinasphaera Bruce, 1997. Pooredoce gen. nov. is characterized by the adult male having a dorsally recessed dorsum to the pleotelson, the posterior margin of which has three enclosed foramens, two visible dorsally, the third visible only from the interior of the posterior margin, the two foramens are formed by the pleotelson posterolateral and median margin lobes coming into contact posteriorly; and the posterior margin of the pleon forms an irregular posteriorly directed ridge. Pooredoce garyi was collected from the reef crest and is known from the type locality, Lizard Island and at Hicks Reef.

Redescription of Gnorimosphaeroma oregonense (Dana, 1853) (Crustacea: Isopoda: Sphaeromatidae), designation of neotype, and 16S-rDNA molecular phylogeny of the north-eastern Pacific species

“…Dana's (1853) redescription and accompanying figures for the type species of Gnorimosphaeroma oregonense are inadequate to distinguish the species. All of Dana's isopod specimens were lost when the sloop, the USS Peacock, sank at the mouth of the Columbia River on July 18, 1841 (Hanable 2003, Bruce 2009 and the type material is unequivocally lost. Menzies (1954) erected Gnorimosphaeroma for Dana's species, but did not designate a neotype for Gnorimosphaeroma oregonense (Dana, 1853), providing only a redrawn figure of a portion of the pleotelson.…”