Paguristes palythophilus Ortmann, 1892

Rahayu, Dwi Listyo, 2007, The hermit crabs Paguristes Dana, 1851 s. l. (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura, Diogenidae) from the western Indian Ocean, Zoosystema 29 (3), pp. 515-534 : 521

Paguristes palythophilus Ortmann, 1892

Paguristes palythophilus Ortmann, 1892: 277 , pl. 12, fig. 5, 5p, q. — Komai 2001: 359 , figs 3-6 (full synonymy).

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Madagascar. 15°24.5’S, 46°02.0’E, 250-265 m, 7.XI.1972, 2 ♀♀ (4.4- 4.8 mm). — 15°18.0’S, 16°12.1’E, 480-510 m, 8.XI.1972, 27 ♂♂ (3.6-7.0 mm) ; 21 ♀♀ (3.4-6 mm) ; 6 ovig. ♀♀ (6.0-7.0 mm). — 12°52.0’S, 48°10.3’E, 420-428 m, 4.III.1971, 4 ♂♂ (4.2-5.4 mm).

Northeast of Mozambique Channel. Bentheddi Expedition, stn DR 38, 12°54.8’S, 45°15.6’E, 200-500 m, 26.III.1977, 1 ♀ (3.0 mm).

DISTRIBUTION. — Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia from 80 to 233 m, and now recorded from Madagascar and Mozambique Channel in deeper water, from 200 to 510 m.

REMARKS

The morphological characters of most of the specimens in this study agree well with Komai’s (2001) redescription of P. palythophilus . However, the specimens studied have stouter ocular peduncles, which are only about half length of the shield; the diameters of the corneas are 0.3-0.4 the lengths of ocular peduncles. Komai’s observation of the holotype and others materials from Japan indicated slender ocular peduncles (0.7-0.8 length of shield), with corneal diameters ranging from 0.1 to 0.2 of peduncular length. Some specimens from Madagascar had bifid ocular acicles, possibly as result of a broken tip that regenerated a bifid tip with the molt. The setation is less dense, especially in female specimens. As mentioned earlier, Paguristes species show a high degree of intraspecific morphological variability as demonstrated by McLaughlin (2004) for P. puniceus Henderson, 1896 . The differences observed in Madagascar specimens seem to be growth related as they are smaller than those studied by Komai (2001).