Leptochelia savignyi (Krøyer 1842), Kroyer, 1842

Esquete, Patricia, Ramos, Eva & Riera, Rodrigo, 2016, New data on the Tanaidacea (Crustacea: Peracarida) from the Canary Islands, with a description of a new species of Apseudopsis, Zootaxa 4093 (2), pp. 248-260 : 258

Leptochelia savignyi (Krøyer 1842)

Material examined. Two females (1.7–1.9 mm), LE 4-C, 27º 46’ 55’’N, 17º 54’ 9’’W, 6 m depth, unvegetated sand, “Cak Foster” dredge, September 2013, coll. E. Ramos & R. Riera.

Remarks. Leptochelia savignyi is distributed along the Atlantic coast of Europe, from the British Isles to south of Portugal (Bamber 2010, 2012). The species was originally described from the archipelago of Madeira (Krøyer 1842) and is widely distributed in the Macaronesian region, with records in Azores, Cabo Verde and the Canary Islands (Bamber 2012; Larsen & Froufe 2013); This is the first record of L. savignyi for El Hierro and the second for the Canary Islands after Larsen & Froufe (2013) reported it from a sandy beach on the east coast of Gran Canaria.

Ecology of El Hierro and Tenerife harbours. In Tenerife, the sampling station was characterized by a dominance of fine sands (D50=0.5 Μm) with a small percentage of gravels (1.09%) and silts (0.92%). The total organic carbon was low (0.39%). Total phosphorus obtained was 21.9 gP/kg, and Kjeldahl nitrogen was 85.2 mgN/ kg. In El Hierro, the sediment was composed mainly of medium sands, (D50=0.4 Μm) with a percentage of gravels (7.42%) and silts (1.20%). The total organic carbon was low (0.41%). Total phosphorus obtained was 4.47 gP/kg, and Kjeldahl nitrogen was 17.8 mgN/kg.

The most abundant accompanying species in the stations collected in Tenerife were the amphipods Ampelisca brevicornis (Costa) and Urothoe puchella (Costa) , the gastropods Bittium latreillii (Payraudeau) and Nassarius cuvierii (Payraudeau) ; the polychaetes Aponuphis bilineata (Baird) , Cirriformia tentaculata (Montagu) , Notomastus latericeus Sars, 1851 , Scoloplos armiger (Müller) and Scoloplos rubra (Webster) ; the ostracod Cypridina mediterranea Costa, and unidentified species of Ostracoda and Turbellaria. In El Hierro, the most abundant accompanying species were the amphipods Harpinia antennaria Meinert , and Photis longicaudata (Bate & Westwood,) and the polychaete Chone arenicola Langerhans.