Homola orientalis Henderson, 1888

Muñoz, Isabel, García-Isarch, Eva & Cuesta, Jose A., 2021, Annotated and updated checklist of marine crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura) of Mozambique supported by morphological and molecular data from shelf and slope species of the “ MOZAMBIQUE ” surveys, Zootaxa 5056 (1), pp. 1-67 : 12

Homola orientalis Henderson, 1888

( Figure 2B )

Material examined. M07, Stn. 81, 548m, ♂ 22.7× 32.6mm (IEO-CD-MZ07/1900), 16S ( MZ 424906 ) ; M08, Stn. 68, 244m, ♂ 24.2× 31.4 mm (IEO-CD-MZ08/1821), COI ( MZ 434755 ) ; M09, Stn. 10, 305m, ♂ 43.8× 53.7mm ( IEO-CD-MZ 09/1806), 16S ( MZ 424907 ) , COI ( MZ 434756 ) .

Habitat and distribution. The geographic distribution of Homola orientalis is the IWP from the East African coast, Gulf of Aden to Australia, Hawaiian Islands, Polynesia, New Zealand ( Kensley 1981) and Korea (Lee et al. 2013). It is the most common homolid species inhabiting the upper bathyal zone of the whole IWP. Its known depth distribution range is 38–650m according to Guinot & Richer de Forges (1995) and 20–650m according to Emmerson (2016c). In Mozambican waters, it is reported at depths of 150–200m ( Emmerson 2016c; Kensley 1981; Sasaki 2019).

Results and remarks. Three males were collected during M07, M08 and M09, from 244 to 548m depth, thus extending its bathymetric distribution in Mozambique to deeper waters (from 200 up to 548m). The specimens agree well with the description and figures in Guinot & Richer de Forges (1995). Some of them had epibionts, mostly barnacles.

Colouration observed. The sepecimens were orange, with small bright orange spots, especially abundant along the legs, where they form not very well-defined transverse bands. The fingers were black, except in their proximal portion.

DNA barcodes. The 16S sequences of the males IEO-CD-MZ09/1806 and IEO-CD-MZ07/1900 are 100% equals and fit 98.3% with an incomplete sequence of 406 bp (hypervariable parts deleted) of H. orientalis from Taiwan (?) (MSLKHC-Hoori, Genbank code KJ132562 ) included in the study by Tsang et al. (2014). The COI sequence of the specimens IEO-CD-MZ09/1806 and IEO-CD-MZ08/1821 (the same haplotype) differs 5.15% from the sequence of H. orientalis from China (?), a sequence included in an unverified complete mitochondrial sequence ( KT 182071 ) by Shi et al. (2016).

Figures

FIGURE2.A,Homolodromiabouvieri,♀ IEO-CD-MZ08/1801;B,Homola orientalis,♂IEO-CD-MZ09/1806;C,Homolochunia valdiviae, ♀ IEO-CD-MZ09/1805; D, Moloha alcocki, ♀ IEO-CD-MZ09/1793;E, Paromolopsis boasi, ♀ IEO-CD-MOZ08/1827; F, Latreilla metanessa, ♀ IEO-CD-MZ09/1810; G, Latreilla valida, ♀ IEO-CD-MZ09/1779. Scale bars: 1cm.