Periclimenaeus Explained

Periclimenaeus is a genus of decapod crustaceans of the family Palaemonidae which is part of the infraorder Caridea. The genus was named by the English carcinologist Lancelot Alexander Borradaile in 1915. He set out the distinguishing features of the genus as:

Pericimaenaeus robustus is known only from the type specimen which was collected off Amirante Islands by the Western Indian Ocean Expeditions of Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner and described in 1915 and again in 1917 by Borradaile, it was re-described by Dr A.J. "Sandy" Bruce of the Queensland Museum in 2005.[1]

Biological notes

Periclimenaeus consists of number of species of small shrimps classified in the subfamily Pontoniinae. They occur mainly in tropical seas, especially in and around coral reefs. Periclimanaeus shrimps live in association with a variety of hosts, mostly sponges and ascidian tunicates, where they normally live in the hosts' internal cavities as pairs formed of a male and a female. Characteristics of the genus include the presence of grossly unequal chelae on the second pair of walking legs, the larger of which has a conspicuous molar process on the seventh and terminal segment of the leg, which sits opposite a depression on the fixed finger, this is used to produce sound, a feature which is convergent with similar structures in the related genus Coralliocaris and in some unrelated genera of snapping shrimps from the family Alpheidae.[2]

Species

Periclimenaeus is the genus in the Palaemonidae with the second highest number of species with their distribution centred on the Indo-West Pacific region where there are 60 or so species with a further 14 identified so far in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific. The first species to be described was described from specimens caught in the Torres Strait by HMS Alert during 1881-82. These specimens were described by Edward J. Miers as Coralliocaris tridendatus, this was then assigned to Periclimenaeus as P. tridentatus after Borradaile named the genus.[3]

The following species are currently recognised:[4]

Notes and References

  1. A.J. Bruce . 2005 . A re-description of Periclimenaeus robustus Borradaile, the type species of the genus Periclimenaeus Borradaile, 1915 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pontoniinae) . Cahiers de Biologie Marine . 46 . 389–398.
  2. A.J. Bruce . 2005 . New species of Periclimenaeus Borradaile (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pontoniinae) from Ashmore Reef, North Western Australia, with remarks on P. pachydentatus Bruce, 1969 . Records of the Western Australian Museum . 22 . 4 . 325–342. 10.18195/issn.0312-3162.22(4).2005.325-342 .
  3. A.J. Bruce . 2013 . Identification aid for the Indo-West Pacific species of. Periclimenaeus Borradaile, 1915 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Caridea: Pontoniinae) using ambulatory dactyli . Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Nature . 56. 2 . 647–664.
  4. Web site: Periclmenaeus Borradaile, 1915 . 4 January 2017 . World Registry of Marine Species. S. De Grave . C. Fransen . 2016.

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