Targaryenella, Segadilha & Serejo & Błażewicz, 2019

Segadilha, Juliana Lopes, Serejo, Cristiana Silveira & Błażewicz, Magdalena, 2019, New species of Typhlotanaidae (Crustacea, Tanaidacea) from the Brazilian coast genera Hamatipeda, Meromonakantha and Paratyphlotanais, with description of Targaryenella gen. nov., Zootaxa 4661 (2), pp. 309-342 : 325

Targaryenella gen. nov. Błażewicz & Segadilha

LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:6BDAC81D-03CC-442D-95D1-C489493928CF

Diagnosis. Body moderately calcified; pereonites not separated or swollen; cephalothorax as wide as pereonite-6; antennule with three articles; antennule article-1 slender (about 3.5 times L:W); antenna with six articles; mandible incisor strongly serrate, distally truncate; molar process of mandible broad, with several tubercles; maxilla with eight distal spines; maxilliped bases partly fused; endites not fused, without gustatory cusps; cheliped attached via small sclerite; pereopods 1–3 with coxa, merus with distoventral setae; carpus with distoventral setae and distodorsal spine; dactylus and unguis together longer than propodus; pereopods 4–6 walking type, merus and carpus with simple spines; carpus without prickly tubercles; dactylus and unguis unfused; pleopods present, endopod with inner subterminal seta absent; exopod and endopod with setae only distally; uropod exopod and endopod slender, both with two articles.

Type species: Meromonakantha anarsios Błażewicz-Paszkowycz & Bamber, 2012 , by designation.

Species included: Targaryenella anarsios ( Błażewicz-Paszkowycz & Bamber, 2012) comb. nov.

LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:EA983928-52F1-44C6-9231-16743E88E6B4

Etymology. The genus name is given after the Targaryen’ from the series movie “Game of Thrones”.

Remarks. Błażewicz-Paszkowycz & Bamber (2012) mentioned that M. anarsios is “strange, incongruous… on a number of characters from the current diagnosis for the genus” Meromonakantha . So, this species was already problematic owing its morphological divergences, mainly by its robustly calcified body, large cephalothorax about 1.4 times L:W and not well separated pereonites and pleonites. Although the authors provisionally included T. anarsios within Meromonakantha , they pointed that with a high probability it represents a monotypic genus. Because the morphological differences between Targaryenella gen. nov. and all other Meromonakantha species are apparent, we decided to erect a new genus. The list of the characters that distinguish the two genera is shown in the Table 4 .

With a three-articled antennule, no eyes and non-serrate incisor of the mandible, the new genus is classified to the family Typhlotanaidae . The absence of the ‘prickly tubercles’ (= clinging apparatus) on pereopods 4–6 excludes it from a large group of typhlotanaids e.g. Larsenotanais , Typhlamia , Typhlotanais or Torquella (Błażewicz-Pasz- kowycz 2007; Błażewicz & Bamber 2012). With walking-type pereopods 4–6, Targaryenella is similar to four typhlotanaid genera— Aremus , Hamatipeda , Meromonakantha and Paratyphlotanais ( Segadilha et al. 2018) .

The presence of the well-developed pleopods distinguishes Targaryenella from Aremus that has pleopods fully reduced ( Segadilha et al. 2018), while its regular (gently rounded) cephalothorax allows it to be distinguished from members of Paratyphlotanais , where the cephalothorax is generally conical ( Bird 2004). A long dactylus and unguis combined (claw) in the pereopods 1–3 (at least as long as propodus) and simple unguis in the pereopods 4–6, distinguish Targaryenella from Hamatipeda that has the pereopods 1–3 claw shorter than the propodus and has a trifurcate tip on the unguis of pereopods 4–6. Moreover, Hamatipeda has robust hook-like spines on the carpus of pereopods 4–6 (e.g. Błażewicz-Paszkowycz 2007), while Targaryenella has regular spines at these loci.