Proscina scinoides ( Woltereck, 1906 )

Zeidler, Wolfgang, 2012, A review of the hyperiidean amphipod families Mimonectidae and Proscinidae (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Hyperiidea: Scinoidea) 3533, Zootaxa 3533, pp. 1-74 : 11-12

Proscina scinoides ( Woltereck, 1906)

( Fig. 3)

Sphaeromimonectes scinoides Woltereck, 1906: 866–868 , fig. 3.

Mimonectes scinoides — Stephensen & Pirlot 1931: 531. Pirlot 1933: 8 (table).

Proscina scinoides — Vinogradov 1964: 127–129, figs. 11, 12. Vinogradov et al. 1982: 123 (key), 127–129, fig. 55. Shih & Hendrycks 1996: 591, 595, 596 (key), 599 (table).

Type material. This species was described from a mature female measuring about 20 mm, from the south-eastern

Indian Ocean (30°06’S 87°50’E); Valdivia stn. 172, 1850– 1600 m, 9 January 1899. The unique type could not be found in the MFN or USNM and is considered lost.

Remarks. Woltereck’s (1906) description of this species is inadequate, and his figure of the type schematic. The gnathopods seem to be simple, and pereopods 3 & 4 are illustrated in reverse, but the merus is not particularly short, and the dactyls seem to be small. Of pereopod 5 he says that the basis has a distal spine, similar to Scina , but this is not illustrated. Pereopod 6 seems to be missing, and both pereopods 5 & 7 are incomplete, but seem to be very slender, unlike any other species, except for Mimoscina . Woltereck does not mention the state of the dactyls probably because the distal articles are missing.

Having considered Woltereck’s inadequate description and figure of this species, and in view of the lack of type material, it is very difficult to characterise this species, but I consider it to be a species of Mimoscina , based on the very slender and probably elongate pereopods 5 & 7. Pirlot (1933) also compared this species with his Mimoscina gracilipes .

The only other record of this species is by Vinogradov (1964), who records two juvenile specimens (4.5, 4.0 mm) from the tropical Indian Ocean, near the Seychelles, Vitjaz stn. 4630 (03°11’S 64°02’E), 2120–3130 m, and Vitjaz stn. 4634 (02°46.8’S 65°41.8’E), 1940–3315 m. However, these specimens are clearly not P. scinoides as described by Woltereck (1906) but have characters that match those of Mimonectes spandlii . In particular, the relatively short merus of the pereopods and the long dactyl of pereopods 3 & 4, as illustrated by Vinogradov (1964), are very diagnostic of this species.