Synalpheus pandionis Coutière, 1909

Hultgren, Kristin M., Iii, Kenneth S Macdonald & Duffy, Emmett, 2011, Sponge-dwelling snapping shrimps (Alpheidae: Synalpheus) of Barbados, West Indies, with a description of a new eusocial species, Zootaxa 2834, pp. 1-16 : 12

Synalpheus pandionis Coutière, 1909

Material examined. Barbados: 2 ovigerous females, 3 non-ovigerous individuals ( VIMS 08BR8602–6), Thunder Bay, from Lissodendoryx sp. 1 ovigerous female, 1 non-ovigerous individual ( VIMS 08BR2706, 8702), Thunder Bay, from Spirastrella sp. Largest ovigerous female, CL 3.90, largest non-ovigerous individual, CL 3.28 mm.

Color. Bright orange, ovigerous females with even more brilliant orange ovaries; both sexes with dark orangebrown major chelae.

Hosts and ecology. In Barbados, Synalpheus pandionis was collected from the orange sponges Spirastrella sp. and from an unidentified species of Lissodendoryx , both growing among and infilling the interstices of coral branches.

Distribution. Bahamas ( Lemaitre 1984); Cuba ( Martínez Iglesias & García Raso 1999); Virgin Islands ( Coutière 1909; Chace 1972); Gulf of Mexico ( Dardeau 1984); Belize (Macdonald et al. 2006; Ríos & Duffy 2007); Discovery Bay, Jamaica ( Macdonald et al. 2009); Barbados (this study).

Remarks. In Barbados, S. pandionis occurred with its close relative S. ul in Spirastrella sp. and Lissodendoryx sp. It can be distinguished from S. ul in these hosts by body size in adults ( S. pandionis > S. ul), length of the scaphocerite blade (typically>1/2 length of the distoventral spine of scaphocerite in S. pandionis , <1/4 length in S. ul), and the posterior corner of the male second pleura (acute in S. pandionis , obtuse in S. ul). The relative size of the scaphocerite blade varied among specimens of S. pandionis from Barbados: while some individuals had blades reaching only 40–60% of the scaphocerite spine, others had well-developed blades that extended 75–90% of the length of the scaphocerite spine and roughly twice the width of the spine. In Coutière’s (1909) type series of S. pandionis , the scaphocerite blade was similar in width to, and less than half the length of, the scaphocerite spine. However, individuals with larger blades were not phylogenetically distinct from individuals with more typical blades ( Hultgren & Duffy 2011).