A new species of Alvinocaris (Crustacea: Decapoda: Alvinocarididae) and new records of alvinocaridids from hydrothermal vents north of New Zealand

Abstract

Alvinocaris niwa n. sp. is described from hydrothermal vents at the Brothers Caldera and Rumble V Seamount on the southern Kermadec Ridge, midway between the Kermadec Islands and Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Four hundred specimens of Alvinocaris longirostris Kikuchi & Ohta, 1995, described from Japan, are recorded at the Brothers. The presence of a possible third Alvinocaris at Rumble V and one or two species of Chorocaris at Brothers are also reported. Eighty-eight specimens of A. niwa and 41 of A. longirostris were measured and examined to assess morphological variation. Morphological characters used to distinguish alvinocaridids are shown to be highly variable. Pairwise correlations with carapace length indicate that numbers of teeth, spines and setae are generally not related to shrimp size. Descriptions based on small numbers of specimens are thus questionable. The new species is characterised by: short rostrum; paired sternal spines on abdominal somites I III; long stylocerite and robust distolateral spine on the antennular proximal segment, with a subterminal spine; two ventral spines on antennal basal segment; row of spines on distal segment of maxilliped III; and two rows of spines on flexor surface of P3 P5 dactyls. It is the shallowest alvinocaridid yet discovered and also inhabits the greatest depth range, at over 700 m.

Genetic population structure of four hydrothermal vent shrimp species (Alvinocarididae) in the Okinawa Trough, Northwest Pacific

“…4) Yonaguni Knoll, in addition to a cold seep area off Hatsushima in Sagami Bay (Fujikura et al 1995, Kikuchi & Ohta 1995, Watabe & Miyake 2000, Ohta & Kim 2001, Komai & Segonzac 2005. Moreover, this species has been reported to be present at the Brothers Caldera in New Zealand and the Jiaolong Cold Seep I in northeastern South China (Webber 2004, Li 2015. This species might have a bathymetrically restricted distribution, as it has not been reported at vent sites shallower than 700 m depth, even when geographically close to deeper habitats (Komai & Segonzac 2005).…”

New Record of Alvinocaridid Shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda: Caridea) from Hydrothermal Vent Fields on the Southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge, including a New Species of the Genus Opaepele

“…Hydrothermal vents and other reducing habitats in deep water (e,g., brine, cold-water sulfide, and hydrocarbon seeps) are frequently inhabited by shrimps of the caridean family Alvinocarididae, Most species appear to be restricted to a particular ridge, seamount, or seep system, although a few species have broad, disjunct distributions (Webber 2004; Williams and Rona, 1986 and Mirocaris fortunata (Martin and Christiansen, 1995) (Fig. 3A, B) (Fig.…”

“…Rimicaris exoculata))))). Since then, two new genera have been described Segonzac 2004, 2005 (Komai and Segonzac 2003, 2004per- …”

A new species of <em>Mirocaris</em> (Crustacea: Decapoda: Caridea: Alvinocarididae) associated with hydrothermal vents on the Central Indian Ridge, Indian Ocean

“…2004; Komai and Segonzac, 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005bMartin and Shank, 2005;Komai et al, in press; reviewed by Martin and Haney, in press). However, a number of newly discovered species, particularly in the caridean family Alvinocarididae, remain undescribed (Shank et al, 1999;Webber, 2004;Komai and Segonzac, 2005;Martin and Haney, in press).…”

“…However, a number of newly discovered species, particularly in the caridean family Alvinocarididae, remain undescribed (Shank et al, 1999;Webber, 2004;Komai and Segonzac, 2005;Martin and Haney, in press). In this paper, we describe a new species of the genus Mirocaris Vereshchaka, 1997, based on 17 specimens from hydrothermal vent fields on the Central Indian Ridge, where another alvinocaridid, Rimicaris kairei Watabe and Hashimoto, 2002, has been described.…”