A new species of Melita from Japan (Crustacea, Amphipoda, Melitidae).

Ko Tomikawa,Ryu Uchiyama,Kentaro Hirashima,Atsushi Hirai

doi:10.3897/zookeys.760.24778

Ko Tomikawa, Ryu Uchiyama + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.760.24778

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Abstract

A new brackish-water species of melitid amphipod, Melita choshigawaensis, from the Choshigawa River, Mie Prefecture, Japan, is named and described. Melita choshigawaensis sp. n. is distinguished from the most similar M. shimizui (Uéno, 1940) by having an elongate and weakly arched male uropod 3, and a deep and strongly hooked anterior lobe of the coxa on the female’s pereopod 6. Nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) of M. choshigawaensis and M. shimizui support divergence at the species level. A key to the Japanese species of Melita is provided.

Highlights

The amphipod genus Melita Leach, 1814 comprises approximately 80 species worldwide (Krapp-Schickel and Sket 2015), most of which occur in marine intertidal and shallow waters, though some inhabit brackish and freshwaters (Jarrett and Bousfield 1996; Krapp-Schickel and Sket 2015)
It is apparent that the diversity of species of Melita in Japanese waters, in brackish environments, is not fully appreciated
Though DNA nucleotide sequence data have been recently successfully used to differentiate morphologically similar amphipod species (Matsukami et al 2017; Tomikawa et al 2016, 2017), previous taxonomic studies on Melita in Japan have focused on morphological characteristics only

Summary

Introduction

The amphipod genus Melita Leach, 1814 comprises approximately 80 species worldwide (Krapp-Schickel and Sket 2015), most of which occur in marine intertidal and shallow waters, though some inhabit brackish and freshwaters (Jarrett and Bousfield 1996; Krapp-Schickel and Sket 2015). Though DNA nucleotide sequence data have been recently successfully used to differentiate morphologically similar amphipod species (Matsukami et al 2017; Tomikawa et al 2016, 2017), previous taxonomic studies on Melita in Japan have focused on morphological characteristics only.

Results

Conclusion