Hymenocera elegans Heller, 1861

Li, Xinzheng, Cleva, Régis & Poupin, Joseph, 2012, Report on some caridean shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda) from Mayotte, southwest Indian Ocean, Zootaxa 3162, pp. 1-30 : 4-5

Hymenocera elegans Heller, 1861

(fig. 2)

Hymenocera elegans Heller, 1861: 25 ; 1862: 264, pl. 3: figs. 9–14. — Barnard, 1950: 767, fig. 147. — Debelius, 1984: 53 –55; 2001: 197, 198, unnumbered photos. — Jones and Morgan, 2002: 73, unnumbered photo. Hymenocera picta — Chace and Bruce, 1993: 137.

? Hymenocera latreillii Sharp, 1893: 119 .

Material examined. St 28, 17/11/2009, 14h–15h30, islet Mbouini, east, 13° 0'27.42"S, 45° 8'16.96"E, 3–20 m, coll. KUW fieldwork, scuba diving 3–20 m, high tide, fringing reef and slope, 1 male (LC 3.5 mm, LT 28 mm), MNHN-Na 16043.

Colouration (fig. 2). The colouration of the specimen agrees well with Debelius (2001).

Distribution. Type locality: Tor, Gulf of Suez. Known from Indo-West Pacific from Red Sea and East Africa to Indonesia, northern Australia.

Remarks. There have been two forms of harlequin shrimps of the genus Hymenocera , one is Indo-West Pacific form, H. elegans Heller, 1861 , which is spotted with brown encircled with bright blue on body, the other is Central and East Pacific form, H. picta Dana, 1852a , which is spotted with wine-red with yellowish edges. Chace and Bruce (1993) treated the two forms as a single species, as “the absence of apparent morphological differences and even of dissimilarities in the configurations of the spots”. However, Debelius (2001) still recognized both the two forms are valid species due to the clearly distinct colours of their patterns. Because the colour pattern is very important and useful to distinguished close or sibling species, and the distributed ranges of the two forms are distinct, we recognize the two forms are two distinct species. The studies with DNA would be useful to check if the two forms are identical or distinct species. H. elegans was not previously recorded from Mayotte with certainty.