Allaxiopsis Sakai, 2011

Poore, Gary C. B., 2018, Burrowing lobsters mostly from shallow coastal environments in Papua New Guinea (Crustacea: Axiidea: Axiidae, Micheleidae), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 77, pp. 1-14 : 2

Allaxiopsis Sakai, 2011

Allaxiopsis Sakai, 2011: 34–35 .

Remarks. Sakai (2011) included three species in Allaxiopsis but confused their records. The type species, Paraxius picteti Zehntner, 1894 , was described from a single female (cl. 10 mm) collected at Ambon, Indonesia. Two males (the larger cl. 8.5 mm) were recorded from Siboga station 209 at Kabaena I., Indonesia, by De Man (1905) and then re-illustrated (De Man, 1925). More specimens were recorded from Guam, Marshall Islands, and Fiji by Kensley (2003). Allaxiopsis spinimana (De Man, 1905) was originally described as a variety of A. picteti from Siboga station 209 based on a 9.25 mm female and a smaller male. The variety was treated at the species level by Sakai and de Saint Laurent (1989) and has been rediscovered (see below). Allaxiopsis bougainvillensis Sakai, 2011 (type species of the genus) was described from much smaller specimens (4.5 mm and 4.9 mm) from Bougainville, Papua New Guinea and is treated here as a synonym of A. spinimana . Sakai included Kabaena I., Sulawesi, Indonesia, in the distribution of all three species and as type locality of the last two, contradicting the data provided with his type specimens. Each of the two species is diagnosed here with a minimal character suite.