Eriopisella sechellensis upolu Barnard 1970

Eriopisella sechellensis upolu

DIAGNOSIS.—Male and female similar; eyes of medium size, brownish-purple in alcohol and with several clear peripheral ommatidia; lateral cephalic lobes scarcely protruding and rounded anteroventrally, lacking anteroventral notch; antenna 1 as long as head and first 9 body segments together, accessory flagellum short, 1 or 2-articulate, article 2 very small; antenna 2 about 40 percent as long as antenna 1; mandibular palp long, article 3 longer man 2, rectolinear and bearing 2 apical setae; inner plates of maxillae 1–2 setose only apically, inner plate of maxilla 1 with only 3 setae, palp article 1 elongate; coxae overlapping each other, coxae 1–2 broader than long, coxae 3–4 about as broad as long, coxa 1 strongly extended forward anteroventrally; article 4 of gnathopod 1 not inflated, article 5 longer than broad, weakly setose posteriorly but unlobate, article 6 rectangular, palm oblique, slightly convex, defined by 3 long marginal spines in tandem and 1 submarginal medial spine, dactyl fitting palm; gnathopod 2 scarcely larger man 1, article 5 longer than 6, bearing posterior lobe sloping distally and extended slightly along article 6, latter like that of gnathopod 1; pereopods 1–2 with slender article 2, middle of article 6 bearing compact group of posterior spines, dactyl with small accessory tooth; article 2 of pereopods 3–5 changing from rectangular to slightly pyriform consecutively, posteroventral corners unproduced, quadrate or subquadrate, remainder of pereopodal articles slender, dactyl not bifid, but with hooked distal nail and with constriction bearing seta and sharp guarding process; uropod 1 with large distolateral peduncular spine, outer ramus of uropod 2 shorter than inner ramus, peduncle of uropod 2 with comb-row of spines on distomedial end; article 2 of outer ramus on uropod 3 about 30 percent as long as article 1, rectangular, inner ramus with blunt apex armed with 2 spines; pleonal epimera 1–3 each with sharp posteroventral tooth and bulging or straight posterior margins, epimeron 2 with several ventrolateral setae in stepped row; pleonite 4 with dorsolateral setule on each side; telson thin dorsoventrally, of medium length, as broad as long, lobes scarcely tilted from flat plane, each lobe with obtuse distolateral apex bearing spine and setule on medial slope; branchiae ovate and pyriform, with narrow necks.

HOLOTYPE.—Bishop Museum collections, catalog number 7275, male, 2.4 mm.

TYPE-LOCALITY.—JLB Hawaii 12, Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, 3–4 m, corals, algae, corallines, 4 March 1967.

MATERIAL.—JLB Hawaii 6 (1), 12 (7).


RELATIONSHIP.—This subspecies resembles closely the typical subspecies Eriopisella s. sechellensis (Chevreux, 1901), but the hands of the gnathopods are slightly narrower, less ovate and more rectangular, the lateral cephalic lobes are more strongly rounded, and the dactyls of pereopods 3–5 are not bifid.

Eriopisella pusilla Chevreux (see Chevreux and Fage, 1925), from the Mediterranean Sea, though resembling E. sechellensis in many ways, has a more strongly hemicircular cephalic lobe and vestigial eye dot, noncontiguous coxae 5–7, slender body, and imperfectly bifid dactyl on pereopod 5.

Eriopisella capensis (K. H. Barnard, 1916) has article 3 of the mandibular palp shorter than article 2, a much elongate palm on gnathopods 1–2, more evenly triangular article 5 on gnathopod 2, rounded pleonal epimera 1–3, shorter antenna 1, and narrower anterior process on coxa 1.

Affinities with Eriopisella (Netamelita) cortada (J. L. Barnard, 1962b) are strong, but E. s. upolu differs from that Californian species in the presence of article 2 on the outer ramus of uropod 3, the sharp, not rounded apices of the telsonic lobes, the presence of a posteroventral tooth on pleonal epimeron 1, the narrow article 2 of pereopod 5, and strongly extended coxa 1.

DISTRIBUTION.—Hawaiian Islands.