Pseudione tuberculata Richardson, 1904

Pardo, Luis Miguel, Boyko, Christopher B. & Mantelatto, Fernando L., 2009, Description of a new species of Asymmetrione (Isopoda: Bopyridae: Pseudioninae) infesting the hermit crab Paguristes tomentosus (Anomura: Diogenidae) from Peru, with a key to species and a review of southeastern Pacific bopyrids, Journal of Natural History 43 (33 - 34), pp. 2041-2055 : 2050

Pseudione tuberculata Richardson, 1904

Remarks

This species was originally described by Richardson (1904) from a single mature pair collected off Port Otway, Chilean Patagonia. Miranda-Vargas and Roccatagliata (2004) subsequently published a detailed redescription of both sexes based on several specimens collected from two different hosts from Argentinean Patagonia. Pseudione tuberculata parasitizes three lithodid hosts (see Table 1) from Patagonian austral waters. The prevalence of P. tuberculata in Paralomis granulosa can reach nearly 46% in hosts of carapace length of 10–19.9 mm, but this rate steeply declines as host size increases ( Roccatagliata and Lovrich 1999). Cañete et al. (2008) reported high prevalence (near 30%) of P. tuberculata from juveniles of Lithodes satolla in the Magellan region. Detrimental effects reported for P. granulosa include sterilization and reduction of growth ( Roccatagliata and Lovrich 1999). High mortality is also suspected in small-sized crabs and evidence of former parasitization in larger hosts has been found ( Roccatagliata and Lovrich 1999).