A new species of Munidopsis Whiteaves, 1874 (Crustacea: Anomura: Galatheoidea: Munidopsidae) from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea

Abstract

A new species of squat lobster, Munidopsis shulerae sp. nov., from the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean, is fully described and illustrated. This new species is named in honor of the late Barbara Shuler Mayo (1945-1988), who first recognized this new taxon in her 1974 unpublished doctoral dissertation, but never formalized it. This new species is placed in the Anoplonotus group based on the presence of simple, narrow rostrum, spineless eyes, fused sternites 3 and 4, well-marked carapace regions, unarmed pleonal tergites, and smooth dactyls of pereopods 2-4. Among western Atlantic congeners, M. shulerae sp. nov. is most similar to M. polita (Smith, 1883), from which it can be distinguished by the straight shape of the rostrum with a tuberculate dorsal carina extending to the epigastric region, coarse ornamentation of the carapace, and a conspicuous submarginal protuberance on each side of the carapace between the antennal and ocular peduncles.

Diversity and distribution of Chirostyloidea and Galatheoidea (Decapoda, Anomura) in the Southern Gulf of Mexico

“…This species has been reported in the northern and southern part of the Gulf of Mexico: Straits of Florida; off coast of Campeche, and the western Caribbean from 320 to 787 m (Vázquez-Bader et al 2014). In the present study Munidopsis schulerae was collected off N Celestún, and N Alacranes, Yucatán (sector ESE) from 503 to 640 m depth.…”

“…Though they are one of the most abundant and diverse groups just after penaeoids, information is restricted to a few species records (Escobar et al 2008). In the last decade, several expeditions to study benthic biodiversity of the continental shelf and slope of the southern Gulf of Mexico have been conducted (Gracia et al 2010; Vázquez-Bader and Gracia 2013; Vázquez-Bader et al 2014). This paper represents the first attempt to contribute to the overall diversity, ecology, and knowledge of this group in this area.…”

Three new species of squat lobsters of the genus Munidopsis Whiteaves, 1874, from Guadeloupe Island, Caribbean Sea (Crustacea, Decapoda, Munidopsidae)

“…The studies on this genus continued with the collections made by the "Alaminos" and other expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea (Pequegnat & Pequegnat 1970, 1971Mayo 1972Mayo , 1974Gore 1983;Baba & Camp 1988). More recently, some studies have improved our knowledge on the distribution of the species (Navas et al 2003;Campos et al 2005;Herrera-Medina et al 2014;Vazquez-Bader & Gracia 2016), including the description of some new species (Pequegnat & Williams 1995;Vazquez-Bader et al 2014;Macpherson et al 2016). Thus, 56 species of the genus Munidopsis are currently known in the Western Atlantic.…”

Three new American species of Munidopsis (Crustacea: Anomura: Munidopsidae)

“…Twenty-seven species of Munidopsis were listed from the Eastern Pacific by Hendrickx and Harvey (1999), with more recent additions from the Gulf of California (Ayón-Parente and Hendrickx, 2007;Hendrickx, 2007;Hendrickx and Ayón-Parente, 2013). Studies of the fauna of the Gulf of Mexico are relevant to the Brazilian fauna (Pequegnat and Pequegnat, 1970;Pequegnat and Williams, 1995;Váquez-Bader et al, 2014) but only two species of Munidopsis have been reported from Brazil itself (Melo, 1999). All the species covered in these studies are from outer shelf or bathyal depths; none is similar to the new species described here.…”