Search

A new species of pontoniine shrimp belonging to the 'Periclimenes obscurus species group' is described from the Berau Islands, North East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Specimens were obtained from aglaopheniid hydrozoans of the genus Macrorhynchia. The new species is here described and figured. Its affinities with related species are discussed and a DNA-barcode is provided.

A second discovery of the echinoid associated shrimp species Diapontonia maranulus Bruce, 1986 is recorded from deep water off Curaçao, Leeward Islands of the Dutch Caribbean. The material is compared with the type description and paratypic material as well as with material of closely related species. A mtDNA COI barcode was obtained from the material. The systematic position of the genus is discussed.

A new coral-associated species of the genus Hamodactylus is described from Lembeh Strait, NE Sulawesi, Indonesia. The three other known species in the genus have been recorded in association with octocorals. The single ovigerous female specimen of the new species was collected from a scleractinian host. It can be easily separated from its congeners by the very long eyestalks and the chela of the second pereiopods having blunt tips of the fingers with tufts of long simple setae giving it an atyid-like appearance.

During fieldwork in 2009 at Ternate, Indonesia, a pair of a pontoniine shrimp species belonging to the genus Conchodytes was collected from a bivalve mollusk of the genus Spondylus. This constitutes the first record of a species of the genus Conchodytes associated with a spondylid host. The specimens can be distinguished from other known Conchodytes species based on both morphology and colour pattern. Its COI barcode however, strongly resembles those obtained from three specimens of C. meleagrinae and is nested in the C. meleagrinae clade of the reconstructed phylogeny. Based on morphology and colouration only the specimens associated with the Spondylus bivalve would have been described as a species new to science. The modest conflicting molecular data have lead the authors to fully describe and figure the Spondylus associated specimens and compare them with the Pinctada associated specimens. Based on the present information it is decided not to give the Spondylus associated specimens the status as a distinct species but regard them as host-related (colour)morph of Conchodytes meleagrinae.

A sponge-associated species of the genus Nippontonia new to science is described from Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia. The only other species in the genus is also known to be a sponge-dweller. The new species can be distinguished from its con- gener by a suite of characters mainly of the anterior appendages.