Pontophilus gracilis occidentalis Faxon, 1893

Wicksten, Mary K., 2012, Decapod Crustacea of the Californian and Oregonian Zoogeographic Provinces 3371, Zootaxa 3371, pp. 1-307 : 120-121

Pontophilus gracilis occidentalis Faxon, 1893

( Fig. 29M, N)

Pontophilus occidentalis Faxon, 1893: 200 ; 1895: 131, pl. D, figs. 2, 2a–2d. — Wicksten 1977a: 963. Pontophilus gracilis occidentalis Chace, 1984: 48 . — Wicksten 1989b: 31. — Wicksten & Hendrickx 2003: 69.

Diagnosis. Rostrum not reaching end of cornea of eye, with 2 pair lateral teeth. Carapace with dorsal carina, one dorsal tooth past midline, 2 teeth behind rostrum, lateral carina with 1 hepatic tooth at mid-body, antennal and pterygostomian teeth present. Eye large, unpigmented, unfaceted. Length of antennular peduncle about 0.5 as long as length of scaphocerite. Scaphocerite long, narrow; blade about as long as lateral tooth. Pereopod 1 subchelate, about as long as scaphocerite, finger of chela closing nearly horizontally to propodus. Pereopod 2 short, chelate, not reaching end of merus of pereopod 1. Pereopods 3–5 long, slender. Abdominal somites without carinae or teeth on pleura. Telson long, exceeding uropods. Total length 60 mm.

Color in life. Mostly scarlet, carapace brownish ( Faxon 1895: pl. D, fig. 2).

Habitat and depth. Deep-sea mud, 1789–4082 m.

Range. 32 km from Castle Rock Light, San Clemente I., California (Velero IV sta. 8791, LACM) to off Peru . Type locality off Cocos I., Costa Rica .

Remarks. Chace (1984) considered the eastern Pacific specimens to belong to a subspecies of the cosmopolitan deep-sea shrimp Pontophilus gracilis rather than a separate species. Except for a shorter rostrum, the eastern Pacific subspecies is identical to specimens from the Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific.