Nerocila arres Bowman & Tareen, 1983

Nerocila arres Bowman & Tareen, 1983: 12–17, figs 10–12.— Trilles, 1994: 82.— Trilles, Rameshkumar & Ravichandran, 2013: 1273–1286, figs 2a, 3a–d, 4, 6a–e.—Rameshkumar, Ravichandran, Sivasubramanian & Trilles, 2013c: 42, fig. 1g.— Rameshkumar, Ramesh, Ravichandran & Trilles, 2014c: 940–944, fig. 1e.—Anand Kumar, Rameshkumar, Ravichandran, Nagarajan, Prabakaran & Ramesh, 2017: 3–5, fig 2c.— Ravichandran, Vigneshwaran & Rameshkumar, 2019: 46, 47, fig. 3m –o.

Nerocila priacanthusi Kumari, Rao & Shyamasundari, 1987: 413–417, figs 2–9.

Type material. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (USNM 189264, Bowman & Tareen 1983) .

Type locality. Persian Gulf, Kuwait, South of Faylaka (Bowman & Tareen 1983) .

Type host. Reported from Nemipterus japonicus (see Bowman & Tareen 1983).

Host. Ariidae, Nemipteridae, Priacanthidae, Serranidae, Sparidae: Acanthopagrus latus (Houttuyn, 1782), Nemipterus peronii (Valenciennes, 1830) (formerly Nemipterus tolu), Nemipterus japonicus (Bloch, 1791), Epinephelus tauvina (Fabricius, 1775) (Bowman & Tareen 1983; Trilles et al. 2013; Rameshkumar et al. 2013a); Priacanthus hamrur (Fabricius, 1775) (Kumari et al. 1987); Netuma bilineata (Valenciennes, 1840) (Anand Kumar et al. 2017) .

Distribution. Indo-Pacific Region: Persian Gulf, Kuwait (Bowman & Tareen 1983); southeast coast of India (Trilles et al. 2013; Rameshkumar et al. 2013a, 2014c); Malaysia (Anand Kumar et al. 2017).

Remarks. Nerocila arres can be identified by body length 2.0 times width; widest at pereonites 6 and 7; cephalon anteriorly rounded; all pereonites posteroventral corners pointed; all coxae with long, narrow, pointed processes; pleotelson with caudomedial point, lateral margins curved; pereopods 1, 2, 4 and 5 with distinct nodules on dactylus; pleonites 1 and 2 posterior margins long and narrow; uropodal endopod lateral margin distinctly serrate, with 15–16 dissimilar teeth (Ravichandran et al. 2019).

Nerocila arres and Nerocila sigani were described by Bowman & Tareen (1983) and accepted as valid by Bruce (1987b) and Trilles (1994). Bruce & Harrison-Nelson (1988) later synonymized the two species stating that the five distinguishing characteristics listed by Bowman & Tareen (1983) are highly variable or not reliable as a diagnostic characteristic. Trilles et al. (2013) later redescribed and illustrated both Nerocila arres and Nerocila sigani of which the former conforms holotype of Bowman & Tareen (1983) and was reinstated as valid. Though both Nerocila arres and Nerocila serra are similar in the shape of the pereonites, pleotelson, dactyli of pereopods 1, 2, 4, and 5; the former differs from the latter in the uropodal endopod (longer and narrower) with a shallower notch on the medial margin and smaller serrations on the lateral margins.

Ravichandran et al. (2019) placed Nerocila priacanthusi Kumari, Rao & Shyamasundari (1987) into junior synonym with N. arres . The type material of N. priacanthusi was deposited at the Zoological Survey of India, Indian Museum, Calcutta without a registration number, and cannot now be located (Ravichandran et al. 2019). However, based on Bowman & Tareen’s (1983) type material and Kumari’s et al. (1987) illustration on their respective species, we agree with Trilles et al. (2011) and Ravichandran et al. (2019) remarks that Nerocila priacanthusi is a junior synonym of Nerocila arres and on the body, pereon, pleon, maxilla, maxilliped, and pereopod characters.