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Type: Article
Published: 2013-04-12
Page range: 412–431
Abstract views: 24
PDF downloaded: 2

Re-examination of the eastern Pacific and Atlantic material of Alpheus malleator Dana, 1852, with the description of Alpheus wonkimi sp. nov. (Crustacea, Decapoda, Alpheidae)

Alpheidae Alpheus snapping shrimp cryptic species transisthmian speciation Pacific Ocean Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The bumpy-clawed snapping shrimp, Alpheus malleator Dana, 1852 (Alpheidae), is revised based on the recently collect-ed and older museum material from the eastern Pacific (Panama, Ecuador), Caribbean (Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago), Brazil (São Paulo), and West Africa (Cape Verde, Senegal, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Congo). The eastern Pa-cific material is assigned to A. wonkimi sp. nov., based on one morphological difference in the colour and thickness of the uropodal spiniform seta, as well as previously published molecular data. The Caribbean, Brazilian and West African ma-terial is considered to represent a single, widespread, morphologically variable, amphi-Atlantic taxon, A. malleator. Al-pheus pugilator A. Milne-Edwards, 1878 is retained as a junior synonym of A. malleator, whereas A. tuberculosus Osorio, 1892, A. malleator var. edentatus Zimmer, 1913 and A. belli Coutière, 1898, the latter two based on juvenile specimens, are tentatively placed in the synonymy of A. malleator. Illustrations, including colour photographs, are provided for A. wonkimi sp. nov. and A. malleator and their morphological variability is discussed and illustrated.