Dorotea, Corbari & Frutos & Sorbe, 2019

Corbari, Laure, Frutos, Inmaculada & Sorbe, Jean Claude, 2019, Dorotea gen. nov., a new bathyal genus (Amphipoda, Eusiridae) from the Solomon Sea (Papua New Guinea), Zootaxa 4568 (1), pp. 69-80 : 77-78

Dorotea gen. nov.

Type species: Dorotea papuana sp. nov. Species included: Dorotea aberrantis ( Bellan-Santini & Ledoyer, 1987) , Dorotea papuana sp. nov.

Ecological data. Dorotea papuana gen. nov., sp. nov. was collected with a dredge on a rather detritical bottom with abundant fragments of dead-coral rubbles suggesting a hard-substrate environment (the log book mentions that the device griped on the bottom during the haul). According to the sample pictures taken just after recovery of the dredge on board (see https://expeditions.mnhn.fr/photo/association?tagId=14&focus=collecte&focusId=9904), the main benthic megafauna was represented by epilithic sponges and gorgonian octocorals, as well as some gastropods, decapods (chirostylids, pagurids, pylochelids), ophiurids and crinoids. Due to their smaller size and transparency, peracarids were not visible on these pictures. But after post-cruise sorting and preliminary identification, 41 amphipod specimens were registered in this sample, belonging to 10 families and at least 12 species (by order of decreasing individual and species abundance): Epimeriidae (22 ind.; 2 spp.), Stegocephalidae (8 ind.; 2 spp.), Oedicerotidae (2 ind.; 1 sp.), Kamakidae (2 ind.; 1 sp.), Lysianassidae (2 ind.; 1 sp.), Eusiridae (1 ind.; 1 sp.), Pontogeneiidae (1 ind.; 1 sp.); Stenothoidae (1 ind.; 1 sp.), Synopiidae (1 ind.; 1 sp.), Uristidae (1 ind.; 1 sp.). Most of these bathyal species are new to science and will be described elsewhere. It is noteworthy that eusirids are poorly represented on this rocky bottom (only one individual of the new Dorotea species), known to usually show a clear preference to muddy sand and muddy habitats on deep bottoms, as observed by Frutos and Sorbe (2014, 2017); Sorbe and Elizalde (2014) on bathyal suprabenthic communities from the SE Bay of Biscay.

Table 1. Morphological comparison between Eusiroides aberrantis (description in Bellan-Santini & Ledoyer, 1987) and Dorotea papuana (present study).