Pontoniopsides paulae ( Gore, 1981 ) Gore, 1981

Bruce, A. J., 2005, A new genus Pontoniopsides, for Pontoniopsis paulae Gore, 1981 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pontoniinae), Zootaxa 826, pp. 1-4 : 3-4

Pontoniopsides paulae ( Gore, 1981) comb. nov.

( Fig. 1 G–H)

Pontoniopsis paulae Gore, 1981: 139 –144, fig. 1A–P. Pontoniopsis paulae — Chace and Bruce, 1993: 62. Pontoniopsis paulae — Li, 2000: 370. fig. 370.

Remarks. — The male holotype, RCL 3.2, the only known specimen, was collected from Carysfort Reef, Key Largo, Florida, 25°10.30’N 80°12.82’W, from 62.5 m, by submersible, dive I­682, 4 June 1979, on Meoma ventricosa Lamarck, 1816 , USNM 161240 ( Gore, 1981).

The nature if the stylocerite remains obscure, but is noted by Gore (1981) as “very reduced,, only slightly produced laterally, rounded”. The stylocerite in P. comanthi is clearly well developed and acute ( Holthuis, 1952: 154, fig. 70B). The absence of a palp on the first maxilliped appears to be without parallel in the Pontoniinae . In other genera it may be small or reduced ( Bruce, 1995, fig. 3), where it is noted that the endopods of the maxillipeds are of particularly conservative morphology.

The dactyl of the ambulatory pereiopod (fig. 1 H) resembles that of some species of the genus Periclimenes that are associated with echinothuroid echinoid hosts, such as P. hertwigi Balss, 1913 . In this species, the distoventral corpus is compressed and laminar and multidenticulate, and the distoventral spines of the propod are also distodorsally denticulate. ( Bruce, 1990, fig. 39C), much as in P. paulae . Meoma is a burrowing spatangoid genus, whereas echinothuroids are substrate surface dwellers. Pontoniopsis paulae is the only pontoniine shrimp reported in association with a burrowing echinoid host.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Pontoniopsides paulae (Gore, 1981), holotype male. A, carapace, eye and rostrum, lateral. B, anterior carapace, eye and orbital region, dorsal. C, rostrum. D, third pereiopod, distal propod and dactyl. Pontoniopsis comanthi Borradaile, 1915, ovig. female, Heron Island, QM W 27259. E, carapace, eye and rostrum, lateral. F, anterior carapace, eye and orbital region, dorsal. G, third pereiopod distal propod and dactyl. H, same, dactyl, distal corpus and unguis .. A – C, redrawn from Gore, 1981, D, from drawing by Raphael