Kyska Shoemaker, 1964

Lowry, J. K. & Kilgallen, N. M., 2014, A generic review of the lysianassoid family Uristidae and descriptions of new taxa from Australian waters (Crustacea, Amphipoda, Uristidae), Zootaxa 3867 (1), pp. 1-92 : 38

Kyska Shoemaker, 1964

( Fig. 23 )

Kyska Shoemaker, 1964: 391 .—J.L. Barnard, 1969: 346.— Barnard & Karaman, 1991: 424 (key), 494.

Type species. Kyska dalli Shoemaker, 1964 , original designation

Included species. Kyska includes one species: K. dalli Shoemaker, 1964 .

Diagnostic description. Antenna 1 peduncle article 1 without anterodistal lobe; accessory flagellum forming cap covering callynophore. Antenna 2 with brush setae. Mandible molar a setose tongue. Maxilla 1 outer plate a well developed 7/4 crown. Maxilla 2 inner plate significantly shorter than outer plate. Gnathopod 1 chelate; coxa 1 large, about as long as coxa 2, subrectangular with concave anterior margin; ischium short (length less than 2 × breadth); carpus compressed; propodus margins tapering distally. Uropod 2 inner ramus not constricted. Telson notched .

Remarks. Only three uristid genera ( Euonyx , Kyska and Stephonyx ) have chelate first gnathopods. Unlike Kyska , Euonyx and Stephonyx both have reduced vestigial coxae on gnathopod 1.

Based on the well developed coxa of gnathopod 1 with a concave anterior margin and a compressed carpus Kyska is similar to Abyssorchomene and Koroga . Kyska differs from both genera in the chelate first gnathopod, from Koroga in less well developed eyes and a deeply cleft telson (notched in Koroga ) and from Abyssorchomene in the straight mandibular incisors (curved in Abyssorchomene ) in the small setose molar and in the tapering margins of the gnathopod 1 propodus.

Distribution. Arctic. Alaskan endemic.

Figures

FIGURE 23. Kyska dalli Shoemaker, 1964, paratype, male, 24.5 mm, AM P.35548, from the western Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Habitus after Shoemaker (1964). Scale bars: gnathopods, pereopods, 1.0 mm; remainder, 0.5 mm.