ABSTRACT
Kasagia sudhakari, a new species of spider crab, is described from two male specimens from southeastern Arabian Sea. This species differs from its only congener Kasagia arbastoi Richer de Forges & Ng, 2007, from the Philippines in the shape and form of the carapace, shape of the pseudorostral spines, arrangement of the orbital plates (supraorbital eave separated from the postorbital spine), size of the lateral branchial tubercles, as well as structures of the interantennular spine, hepatic lobe, cheliped, ambulatory merus and male first gonopod.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Dr. M. Sudhakar, Director, Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology, Kochi, India, for providing an opportunity to work on the taxonomy of deep-water crustaceans of the Indian EEZ. The authors also wish to thank Shri. N. Saravanane, Scientist E, CMLRE and Project Co-ordinator of the ‘Resource Exploration and Inventorization System’ project. The authors gratefully acknowledge Shri C. Vasu, Chief Scientist, officers, crew members and the participants of the FORVSS cruise number 340 for meticulously collecting the dredge samples. We are grateful to Dr. Shane T. Ahyong, Senior Research Scientist, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia and the other anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments towards improving the manuscript. A special thanks to Shri Sajikumar K. K., Technical Assistant, Molluscan Fisheries Division, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi for the photography of the specimens. This is CMLRE contribution number 102.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Vinay P. Padate http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2244-8338
Hashim Manjebrayakath http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6556-7364
Peter K.L. Ng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5946-0608