Vijaya Walker, 1904

Lowry, J. K. & Stoddart, H. E., 2002, The Amaryllididae of Australia (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Lysianassoidea), Records of the Australian Museum 54, pp. 129-214 : 210-211

Vijaya Walker

Vijaya Walker, 1904: 241 .– Stebbing, 1906: 717.– Gurjanova, 1962: 45.–J.L. Barnard, 1964: 63.–J.L. Barnard, 1969: 368.–Barnard

& Karaman, 1991: 541.–Lowry & Stoddart, 2002.

Diagnosis. Head with rostrum anteriorly rounded; eye ventrally tapered. Antenna 1 peduncular article 1 not ballshaped proximally; peduncular article 2 medium length; callynophore absent in female, present in male. Antenna 2 flagellum about as long as that of antenna 1 in female, longer than body in male. Mandible palp article 3 with proximal A3-seta in male, without proximal A3-seta in female. Pereopod 4 coxa with anterior and posterior margins subparallel. Uropod 3 rami with plumose setae in male and female; outer ramus 1-articulate.

Type species. Vijaya tenuipes Walker, 1904 , by monotypy.

Species composition. Vijaya contains one species: V. tenuipes Walker, 1904 .

Remarks. When Pirlot (1933) described Bathyamaryllis , the genus Vijaya was so poorly known that he could not have realised the close relationship of his species to the species that Walker (1904) described. We (Lowry & Stoddart, 2002) have examined Walker’s material and redescribed the species based on new material from the Andaman Sea. This has shown several generic level differences between these species. Vijaya has a ventrally tapered eye and a unique acutely produced anteroventral corner on coxa 4; it does not have the proximally ball-shaped peduncular article 1 of antenna 1 that characterizes Bathyamaryllis and Devo . Pseudamaryllis has reniform eyes, a callynophore in the female and subparallel anterior and posterior margins on coxa 4.

Vijayiines typically live in the deep sea; Vijaya is the only member of the group that lives in shallow tropical waters.

The female of Vijaya tenuipes has oostegites on gnathopod 1 to pereopod 5; it is the only amaryllidid species known to have an oostegite on gnathopod 1. The only other lysianassoid we know to have such an array of oostegites is Eurythenes gryllus .

Distribution. Northern Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea; shallow water to 68 m depth (see Fig. 77).

Plate 1. Watercolours by Sharne Wiedland, from photographs of living specimens, showing the diversity of colour in amaryllidids. These figures show the camouflage pattern of Amaryllis carrascoi n.sp. (a, upper), the warning colours of Amaryllis philatelica n.sp. (b, middle) and the lack of colour in the deep-sea species Devo grahami n.sp. (c, lower) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Gary Poore (Museum of Victoria) and Wolfgang Zeidler (South Australian Museum) for the loan of large amounts of material; Ken Graham (NSW State Fisheries) for material collected by the FRV Kapala ; Stephen Keable, Kate Dempsey and Rachael Peart for illustrations; and Roger Springthorpe for making the plates. Parts of this project were supported by grants from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Biological Resources Study.