Callianopsidae Manning & Felder, 1991

Dworschak, Peter C. & Poore, Gary C. B., 2018, More cautionary tales: family, generic and species synonymies of recently published taxa of ghost and mud shrimps (Decapoda: Axiidea and Gebiidea), Zootaxa 4394 (1), pp. 61-76 : 66-67

Family Callianopsidae Manning & Felder, 1991

Callianopsinae Manning & Felder, 1991: 787–789.—SchWeitzer Hopkins & Feldmann 1997: 237.—Sakai 2005: 226–227.— Sakai 2011: 477 –478.— Sakai et al. 2015b: 122 –124.

Callianopsidae .— Sakai 2011: 477.— Sakai et al. 2015b: 121 –122.

Neocallianopsinae Sakai, 2011: 482 . Syn. nov.

Remarks. Sakai (2011) elevated Callianopsinae to family rank and added a second subfamily, Neocallianopsinae . The latter was said to differ from the former only in the absence of a ‘dorsal oval’ and cardiac sulci. Comparison of Callianopsis anovalis Lin, Komai & Chan, 2007 , type and only species of Neocallianopsis , with other species of the genus shows them to differ little; notably they share a similar rostrum, telson, uropod, maxilliped 3, chelipeds, and pleomere 6 with a pair of lateral teeth. The dorsal oval is difficult to define in these basal genera (unlike in Callichiridae). De Saint Laurent (1973) diagnosed the genus as having the ‘ovale bien délimité’ which was figured by Schweitzer Hopkins & Feldmann (1997) and Phaetoncalliax mauritana Sakai, Türkay, Beuck & Freiwald, 2015 , otherwise similar to Callianopsis , has what appears to be a weak discontinuity between the gastric region and the rostrum ( Fig. 4A ). There would appear a continuum from well marked to undetectable in this variable character that is thereby unreliable as a generic or subfamily character. As we show below, all three genera recognised by Sakai (2011), plus Phaetoncalliax Sakai, Türkay, Beuck & Freiwald, 2015 are subjective junior synonyms of Callianopsis de Saint Laurent, 1973 , the only genus, so subfamilies are superfluous.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Callianopsis mauritana (Sakai, Türkay, Beuck& FreiWald, 2015). A–E, holotype of Phaetoncalliax mauritana, F, paratypeof P.mauritana, SMF44111.A, carapacein lateral vieW; B,same in dorsalvieW;C, D, left pleopod,posterior vieW;E, same, anterior vieW; F, left and right pleopods 1 in situ, arroW points to pleuron 1 spine. Scale bar = 1 mm.