Bassoleptochelia, Błażewicz-Paszkowycz & Bamber, 2012

Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, M. & Bamber, R. N., 2012, The Shallow-water Tanaidacea (Arthropoda: Malacostraca: Peracarida) of the Bass Strait, Victoria, Australia (other than the Tanaidae), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 69, pp. 1-235 : 125

Genus Bassoleptochelia gen. nov.

Diagnosis. Female with 4-articled antennule, third article longer than second; antenna with setae rather than spines on articles 2 and 3; mandibles with relatively simple lacinia mobilis and pars molaris, maxilliped with three basal setae, elongate distal spatulate spines on endites, setae on palp article 2 simple; cheliped very slender, merus covering less than half of ventral margin of carpus and with ventral tuft of numerous long setae, propodus (palm of chela) longer than wide, fixed finger with two ventral setae; pereopod 1 with elongate merus and distal crown of setae on carpus, dactylus longer than unguis; merus, carpus, propodus and dactylus of pereopods 4 to 6 with fields of microtrichia, carpus of pereopod 6 with dense brush of microtrichia (prickly tubercle); uropod exopod 1-segmented, endopod 4-segmented. Otherwise typical of the family. Male showing dimorphism in the antennule with secondary segmentation of the flagellum to more than 5 segments; cheliped slender, chela almost subchelate, fixed finger one-third as long as dactylus, distal edge of propodus with triangular tooth-like apophysis, comb-row vertical; pereopods more slender than those of female, posterior pereopods ambulatory.

Type species. Bassoleptochelia verro sp. nov. by monotypy.

Etymology. Named for the Bass Strait, plus – Leptochelia (female).

Remarks. The species described below has the gross appearance of a typical leptocheliid, but the tufts of microtrichia on the posterior pereopods are not found in any other species of the family (being more like those found on some typhlotanaid species – see Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2007). Among Australian leptocheliids, the “brush” of long setae on the cheliped merus is also found in Pseudoleptochelia fairgo , although in that species they point proximally in life. Equally, the male is unusual for the family in having ambulatory posterior pereopods, which must develop secondarily from those of the subadult form which are like those of the female, and in the unique cheliped chela, which falls somewhere between the normal chelate form of most genera and the subchelate form found in some species of Pseudoleptochelia and Parakonarus . The mouthparts are also atypical of the family, in having simple inner setae on the second palp article of the maxilliped, while the mandibular lacinia mobilis and pars molaris are both simple, rather than crenulate or rugose, respectively.