Revision of Laphystiopsidae (Crustacea: Amphipoda): new and old species from South China Sea, southeastern Australia, Falkland Islands and western Atlantic Ocean
Memoirs of Museum Victoria Vol 57 (2) p. 287–310 (1999)
Abstract
Collections from Bass Strait and eastern Tasmania reveal two new species of Laphystiopsis, L. wulgi sp. nov., and L. zomerysis sp. nov. of the rarely encountered family Laphystiopsidae. To verify differences between Prolaphystiopsis and the type of the family Laphystiopsis, old but unreported materials of Laphystiopsis planifrons Sars in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History collections were reviewed and are presented herein. Prolaphystiopsis platyceras, type of the genus, was borrowed and redescribed. Sars' (1895) and Schellenberg's (1931) differentiation of the genera was based on erroneous observations of the palp of maxilla 1. A review of the family is presented, with updating of diagnoses and literature. Prolaphystiopsis differs from Laphystiopsis in the narrow rostrum, bulging head, and enlarged and lobate article 1 of antenna 1. Laphystiopsis planifrons is newly recorded from the western Atlantic Ocean. Laphystiopsis iridometrae Shoemaker (1919) from the South China Sea is reviewed and illustrated for the first time. Prolaphystiopsis latirostris Ledoyer is removed to Laphystiopsis. Individuals of the family are presumed to be inquilinistic parasites or commensals of sessile marine invertebrates, particularly crinoids, but are rarely noticed by amphipodologists.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1 JULY 1999