New records of Pontocaris affinis affinis (Alcock, 1901) and Pontocaris propensalata Spence Bate, 1888 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Crangonidae) from Quilon bank of Southeastern Arabian Sea

Purushothaman, P and Chakraborty, Rekha D and Kuberan, G and Maheswarudu, G (2018) New records of Pontocaris affinis affinis (Alcock, 1901) and Pontocaris propensalata Spence Bate, 1888 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Crangonidae) from Quilon bank of Southeastern Arabian Sea. Zootaxa, 4378 (2). pp. 269-272.

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Abstract

This paper reports on two crangonid shrimps, Pontocaris affinis affinis and Pontocaris propensalata from Southeastern Arabian Sea. Continuous surveys in the Quilon bank yielded two new records of Pontocaris, which were found on the continental slope at 250–300 m depth. A 4.1% of genetic divergence between the 16S DNA sequences of the two species was noticed. Quilon bank is the most productive ground for deep-sea shrimps, at 250–350 m depth lying between 8°N and 9°N Lat of the southeastern Arabian Sea. In particular, this region is an important ground for deepwater exploitation and records for a number of non-penaeid shrimps’ distribution (Suseelan 1985; Rajan et al. 2001; Kurup et al. 2008). Currently, we noticed the crangonid shrimp Pontocaris affinis affinis (Alcock, 1901) and Pontocaris propensalata Spence Bate, 1888 are distributed in this region. Earlier, these species were recorded from Bombay, Bay of Bengal and Madagascar of Indian Ocean at a depth of 102–175 m (Chan 1996). The present work reports the taxonomic documentation of these species along with mitochondrial DNA sequences (COI & 16S), obtained from the trawls operated off the Southwest coast of India. Pontocaris affinis affinis and Pontocaris propensalata were collected from the deep sea fishing harbour, Sakthikulangara, Kerala, India. The specimens were caught from the commercial trawlers (mesh size 20–26 mm) operated in the Quilon region during 2014 to 2016. The species was identified following the description and keys by Alcock (1901) and Chan (1996). The collected specimens were preserved in 90% ethanol, and are deposited at Marine Biodiversity Museum, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin, India.

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