Axius werribee ( Poore and Griffin, 1979 )

Poore, Gary C. B. & Collins, David J., 2009, Australian Axiidae (Crustacea: Decapoda: Axiidea), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 66 (2), pp. 221-287 : 244

Axius werribee ( Poore and Griffin, 1979)

Figure 14b

Axiopsis (Axiopsis) werribee Poore and Griffin, 1979: 232–235 , figs. 5, 6.— Gowlett-Holmes, 2008: 217 (colour photo).

Calocarides werribee .— Sakai and de Saint Laurent, 1989: 84.— Sakai, 1994: 175, 201.— Davie, 2002: 452.

Axiopsis werribee Poore, 2004: 174 , figs. 45c, d, 46b, pl. 11h.

Distribution. Tas., Vic. SA, 2–25 m depth.

Remarks. Axius werribee has five gastric carinae unornamented except for two teeth on the median gastric carina at the base of the rostrum. The triangular rostrum has five pairs of lateral teeth from which the supraocular tooth is not differentiated. Poore and Griffin (1979) misinterpreted the pleopods. Reexamination of type material in Museum Victoria has revealed that the male pleopod is present, two-articled, with the second article triangular and bearing a thumb-like appendix interna ( Poore and Griffin, 1979: fig. 6h). The male pleopod 2 has both appendices interna and masculina. These characters together place the species clearly in Axius rather than Axiopsis or Calocarides . Both have spinose lateral carinae and lack pleurobranchs. The presence of this species in SA relies on Gowlett-Holmes (2008).

Of the three species of Axius , A. werribee most closely resembles A. armatus redescribed by Kensley (2001). These two species alone share two teeth on the median gastric carina and two pairs of spines dorsally on the telson and lack a pleurobranch over pereopod 5. The chelipeds of A. werribee lack a meral spine (present in A. armatus ) and are more compact. The male pleopod 1 (fig. 14b) is more complex than in A. stirhynchus (fig. 14a; see too Ngoc-Ho, 2003: fig. 2E); that of A. armatus is unknown and of A. serratus slender and setose ( Kensley, 2001).

Figures

Figure 14. Male pleopods 1. a, Axius stirhynchus Leach, 1815 (France, NMV J34093). b, Axius werribee (Poore and Griffin, 1979) (holotype, NMV J280).