Sponge-dwelling snapping shrimps of Curaçao, with descriptions of three new species

Abstract

Sixteen species of sponge-dwelling snapping shrimp in the genus Synalpheus (gambarelloides group) were collected from sites spanning the south coast of Curaçao, including three new to science. Synalpheus hoetjesi sp. nov. belongs to a species complex that includes Synalpheus pandionis, S. dardeaui, S. yano, S. goodei, S. longicarpus, and S. ul. Synalpheus kuadramanus sp. nov. is a distinctive shrimp characterized by a short, square moveable finger on the major first pereopod and by brilliant turquoise embryos in females. Synalpheus orapilosus sp. nov. is a shrimp most morphologically similar to Synalpheus barahonensis—both species share the distinctive character of a tuft of setae on the distal end of the third maxilliped, instead of a distal circlet of spines—but can be distinguished from the latter by the number of carpal segments on the second pereopod. Although eusocial Synalpheus species (defined here as species that live in large colonies with strong reproductive skew) are often the most numerically abundant Synalpheus collected from sponges at other sites, only pair-bonding Synalpheus species were recorded from our collections in Curaçao.