Alpheus gracilis Heller, 1861

Dehghani, Amir, Sari, Alireza & Naderloo, Reza, 2019, Annotated checklist of the snapping shrimps of the genus Alpheus Fabricius, 1798 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Alpheidae) from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, Iran, Zootaxa 4544 (4), pp. 479-504 : 485-486

Alpheus gracilis Heller, 1861

( Fig. 3 C–D)

Alpheus gracilis Heller, 1861: 271 ; De Man, 1897: 733; Tiwari, 1963: 283.

Alpheus gracilis alluaudi — Coutiere, 1905a: 882.

Alpheus gracilis luciparensis — De Man, 1911: 337.

Alpheus gracilis gracilis —Banner & Banner, 1968: 280.

Crangon gracilis simplex — Banner, 1953: 75.

Alpheus gracilis simplex — Banner & Banner, 1966b: 97.

Material examined. PG: 3 males, 3 ovig. females ( ZUTC 6674 ), Abu-Musa I., sandy/boulder shores, Coll. A. Dehghani & H. Ashrafi, 10 Oct. 2017 ; 1 male, 1 female ( SMF 51380), Abu-Musa I., sandy/boulder shores, Coll. A. Dehghani & H. Ashrafi, 10 Oct. 2017 ; GO: 2 males, 2 ovig. females ( ZUTC 6673 ), Chabahar Bay , Tis, in large rocks and coral rubble, Coll. A. Dehghani, 2 Oct. 2016 .

Distribution. Indo-West Pacific: South Africa, Red Sea, Australia, central Pacific to Hawaii, and Society Islands.

Regional records. PG and GO: Iran (present study).

Habitat. All specimens were collected from crevices in dead coral heads and mostly found in water from 3–6 m deep. This species is syntopic with Alpheus parvirostris .

Remark: Heller (1861) described Alpheus gracilis from the Red Sea. Coutière (1905) described a subspecies Alpheus gracilis alluaudi based on material collected in the Maldives. According to Coutière (1905), the subspecies shows no secondary unguis on the dactylus of the third pereiopod. De Man (1911) described a variety of the species from the Lucipara Island as A. gracilis luciparensis . Banner & Banner (1983) studied various collections from Red Sea, Thailand, southern Philippines and Christmas Island, Maui and other Hawaiian Islands and listed three morphological variations for the species. These variations are categorized as: 1) Presence of deep or shallow orbito-rostral grooves, 2) Presence or absence of a projection on dactylar articulation of small chela, 3) Simple or bi-ungulate dactylus of third pereiopod. Based on these features, Banner & Banner (1983) concluded that this species shows a tendency to develop morphologically separated geographic lineages. All of our examined specimens show shallow orbito-rostral grooves, a projection on the dactylar articulation of small chela, and a biungulate dactylus of the third pereiopod.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Alpheus edwardsii (Audouin, 1826), A. Male (CL. 9 mm); B. Female (CL. 9 mm), Abu-Musa Island. Alpheus gracilis Heller, 1861, C. Male (CL. 8.5 mm); D. Female (CL. 8.3 mm), Abu-Musa Island. Alpheus hippothoe De Man, 1888, E. Male (CL. 9.1 mm); F. Female (CL. 9.2 mm), Abu-Musa Island.