Leucothoe safiae Lyons & Myers, 1991

Kristine N. White & Traudl Krapp-Schickel, 2017, Red Sea Leucothoidae (Crustacea: Amphipoda) including new and re-described species, European Journal of Taxonomy 324, pp. 1-40 : 27-28

Leucothoe safiae Lyons & Myers, 1991

Leucothoe safiae Lyons & Myers, 1991: 607 –610, figs 7–8.

Leucothoe richiardii – Ledoyer 1979: 106–108, fig. 66; 1986: 672–673.

non Leucothoe richiardii Lessona, 1865: 427 .

Type locality

Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea.

Material examined

ISRAEL: 1 ♂, 4 mm, stn 39, Eilat, U. Schiecke leg., April–May 1969.

Remarks

There are no sexual differences to the female described in the original paper, except that pereopods 6 and 7 have obviously confounded labels in fig. 8 of Lyons & Myers (1991). The only addition which seems worth mentioning is the rather small head with large round eyes (illustrated but not stressed verbally) and a quite remarkable bulge anteriorly.

Kossman’s (1880) description of L. crassimana from the Red Sea is poor; the drawings of the gnathopods, however, would match this species except for the length of 7 mm (vs 3.6–4 mm here). Ledoyer (1979: 106–108, fig. 66 and 1986: 672–73) named his material, found in Madagascar, L. richiardii Lessona, 1865 but it matches perfectly with the material herein studied, while L. richiardii has Genova (Mediterranean) as the type locality with a length of 6–8 mm. In both mentioned publications he also illustrates the anterior bulge of the head and the deep insertion of antenna 1.

This species remains the only Leucothoe with a posterodistal tooth on epimeron 3 to have been identified in the Red Sea.

Distribution

Red Sea (present study), Gulf of Aqaba ( Lyons & Myers 1991); Western Indian Ocean: Madagascar ( Ledoyer 1979, 1986).