Chauliopleona Dojiri & Sieg 1997

Larsen, Kim & Araújo-Silva, Catarina L., 2014, The ANDEEP Tanaidacea (Crustacea: Peracarida) revisited III: the family Akanthophoreidae, Zootaxa 3796 (2), pp. 237-264 : 245

Genus Chauliopleona Dojiri & Sieg 1997

Type Species. Chauliopleona dentata Dojiri & Sieg, 1997

Diagnosis. See Larsen & Shimomura (2007)

Remarks. The genus Chauliopleona was only described 17 years ago ( Dojiri & Sieg 1997), but the number of species has increased rapidly since then, mainly due to the revision by Guerrero-Kommritz (2005). While a common genus, Chauliopleona is systematically troublesome and it has been assigned both to the family Anarthruridae ( Sieg & Dojiri 1991, Dojiri & Sieg 1997, Guerrero-Kommritz 2005) and the family Akanthophoreidae (Błażewicz- Paszkowycz & Bamber 2012) or considered incertae sedis in a phylogenetic analysis by Larsen & Wilson (2002). The posteriorly-directed ventral apophysis on pleonite 5 has previously been recorded as very variable between species, both in relative length and angle (Guerrero-Kommritz 2005). We can confirm this observation here but also found intraspecific variation that seems to be dependent on a specimen’s size.

Chauliopleona is now considered a widespread genus, with an impressively wide bathymetric distribution range, extending from shallow water at 23 m ( Larsen & Shimomura 2009), 90–278 m ( Dojiri & Sieg 1997, Larsen & Shimomura 2007), to, and particularly in, the deep sea ( Larsen 2005, Guerrero-Kommritz 2005, Bird 2007). Geographically, it has previously been collected in both polar regions ( Hansen 1913, Guerrero-Kommritz 2005), the North-east Atlantic ( Holdich & Bird 1985), the Angola Basin (Guerrero-Kommritz 2005), the Gulf of Mexico ( Larsen 2005), off California ( Sieg & Dojiri 1991, Dojiri & Sieg 1997), in Japanese waters ( Kudinova-Pasternak 1984, Larsen & Shimomura 2007, 2009), including the Kurile-Kamchatka Trench ( Kudinova-Pasternak 1970, Bird 2007), New Zealand ( Gordon 2010), and recently also in the mid-Pacific Ocean (Larsen unpublished data). This genus is likely to be present in all major oceans and the current lack of reports from the Indian Ocean is likely to reflect sampling effort rather than a true picture of the distribution.

Species included. C. amdrupi ( Hansen, 1913) ; C. amftae Guerrero-Kommritz, 2005 ; C. andeepi sp. nov.; C. armata ( Hansen, 1913) ; C. ciimari sp. nov.; C. dentata ; C. faini Larsen, 2005 ; C. hansknechti Larsen & Shimomura, 2007 ; C. hastata ( Hansen, 1913) ; C. nickeli Guerrero-Kommritz, 2005 ; C. paradoxa Guerrero- Kommritz, 2005; C. sinusa Larsen & Shimomura, 2009 .