Kerguelenica petrescui (crustacea: cumacea), a new species from australian waters

• Published in: Journal of Crustacean Biology
• Main Authors: Gerken, Sarah, McCarthy, Alison
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press (OUP) 2008
• Subjects: cumacea; pseudocumatidae; kerguelenica; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10379/11614; https://doi.org/10.1651/07-2916r.1

Kerguelenica is a genus that was originally described on the basis of female specimens collected off the coast of the Kerguelen Islands by M. Ledoyer in 1977. At the time, Kerguelenica was recognized as a problematic genus in that the family placement was unclear due to the lack of male specimens, and Ledoyer (1977) placed the genus in Pseudocumatidae with some unease. We describe a new species of Kerguelenica from specimens collected from the continental slope of Australia and Tasmania, from depths of 1000-1800 m. The adult male and ovigerous female are fully described and figured. The new species can be distinguished from the only other species in the genus, K. platycephala, by several characters. The new species has an ocular lobe, lacks a pair of dorsal protuberances on the carapace, in maxilliped 3 the ischium is present and the merus is very broad but the carpus is less broad than the merus, the basis of pereiopod 3 is slightly shorter than twice the length of the other articles together, and the telson is more than half the uropod peduncle length. In comparison, K. platycephala has no ocular lobe, bears a pair of dorsal protuberances on the carapace, maxilliped 3 is without an ischium and both the merus and carpus are broad, the basis of pereiopod 3 is 1.5X the other articles together, and the telson is half the length of the uropod peduncles. In other respects, the two species are quite similar in appearance. However, the description of the new species and especially the adult male do not resolve the issue of the family affinity of the genus.