A new species of the deep-sea shrimp genus Spongicoloides (Decapoda: Spongicolidae) from the South China Sea

Abstract

Spongicoloides zhoui sp. nov. (Crustacea: Decapoda: Spongicolidae), a species of deep-sea hexactinellid sponge-associated shrimp, is described based on specimens collected from the Zhenbei Seamount in the South China Sea. The new species is morphologically most similar to the Western Pacific congeneric species Spongicoloides iheyaensis Saito, Tsuchida & Yamamoto, 2006 in that the ischium of the third pereiopod is unarmed and the fixed finger of the third pereiopod is armed with small teeth on the distoventral margin. However, S. zhoui sp. nov. can be distinguished from S. iheyaensis in that its female antennal basicerite has three large spines on the distolateral margin. Molecular analyses based on nuclear histone H3, and mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), 12S ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and 16S rRNA gene fragments confirmed the placement of S. zhoui sp. nov. within a clade of Spongicoloides/Spongiocaris species, and their sequence divergences were large enough to justify the recognition of this new species.

New records of spongicolid shrimps (Crustacea, Decapoda, Stenopodidea) from Taiwan

“…Uropods with ovate endopod, shorter than telson, dorsal surface with median and submedian carinae; exopod broader than endopod, lateral margin serrated. China Sea (Zhao et al 2021). They can be readily separated from congeners by the third pereiopod bearing teeth on the disto-dorsal margin of the fixed finger but is unarmed on the ischium.…”

“…They can be readily separated from congeners by the third pereiopod bearing teeth on the disto-dorsal margin of the fixed finger but is unarmed on the ischium. These two species mainly differ in the numbers of lateral spines on the antennal basicerite in females (1 in S. iheyaensis vs. 3 in S. zhoui) and disto-dorsal teeth at the fixed finger of the third pereiopod (3-9 in S. iheyaensis vs. 1-4 in S. zhoui, see Zhao et al 2021).…”

“…Shirmps of the infraorder Stenopodidea Bate, 1888 inhabit mainly tropical and sub-tropical seas (Schram 1986;Goy 2010a). This infraorder is smallest in decapod crustaceans and only with three families, 12 genera and 96 species known to date (De Grave & Fransen 2011;Goy 2015;Komai 2015;Chen et al 2016;Komai et al 2016;Criales & Lemaitre 2017;Saito et al 2017;Xu et al 2017;Saito & Fujita 2018;Rodríguez Quintal & Goy 2019;Bochini et al 2020;de Azevedo Ferreira et al 2020;Chen & Chan 2021;Schnabel et al 2021;Zhao et al 2021). Although Taiwan is a tropical island, there are only five stenopodidean records, Stenopus hispidus (Olivier, 1811) (Balss 1914;Chan & Yu 2002), Stenopus goyi Saito, Okuno & Chan, 2009(Saito et al 2009), Globospongicola spinulatus Komai & Saito, 2006(Wang et al 2016) and Odontozona spiridonovi Chen & Chan, 2021 (Chen & Chan 2021).…”