Reef-associated palaemonid shrimp fauna of Lakshadweep islands: special focus on Cuapetes Clark, 1919 (Decapoda; Caridea) with a description of new species and phylogenetic notes

ABSTRACT

The reef-associated palaemonid shrimp fauna of Indian waters, especially in island ecosystems, is one of the least studied. During explorations at Lakshadweep Islands, Cuapetes elegans (Paulson 1875), C. grandis (Stimpson 1857) and a new species, Cuapetes purushothamani sp. nov., were recorded and illustrated based on the specimens collected from dead coral and rocky shore regions of eastern lagoon of Agatti Island (0.5–1.0 m), Lakshadweep, India. The new species shows close relation with C. elegans, possessing distinctive characteristics as indicated: rostrum extends as far as antennal scale, arrangement of ventral teeth below the wide edentulous dorsal part of rostrum, long dorsal spines of telson, a fewer number of segments in antennal flagellum, fingers of first chelated leg slightly longer than palm, chela of second cheliped longer than combined length of merus and carpus with inflated palm. In addition, the partial sequences of mitochondrial genes cytochrome c oxidase I (COI), 16S and nuclear Histone 3 (H3) gene were generated and compared with other available species of Cuapetes. The phylogenetic analyses strongly supported our new discovery, Cuapetes purushothamani sp. nov., which possesses a close relationship with C. elegans by having high interspecific genetic divergences (COI: 19.2–19.9%; 16S: 12–12.8%; H3: 3.1–3.9%).

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1B5C9228-9D9F-430E-BF11-C6DC7510DF1B

KEYWORDS:

• Reef-associated shrimps
• Cuapetes
• ‘elegans’ group
• morphology
• molecular analyses
• genetic divergences
• new species

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Director of ICAR – National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow, for the facilities and encouragement. They are grateful to the Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE, MoES) for financial support and the Dept. of Fisheries, Administration of Lakshadweep is acknowledged for local logistical support at Lakshadweep.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Voucher specimens were deposited at the National Fish Museum and Repository of the ICAR-NBFGR, Lucknow, India, and paratypes at the National Museum of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Kolkata, India. DNA sequences were deposited into the public database of GenBank.

Author contribution

P.P*. has done the species identification and wrote the original draft of manuscript (demised before publication). S.J. and B.S. collected the sample and involved in manuscript preparation. K.V.J. reviewed and confirmed the species identification. D.A.T. and T.T.A. revised the manuscript. K.K.L. provided conceptualization and overall guidance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology, Ministry of Earth Sciences [Grant Number MoES/ CMLRE/MLRE/GIA/2022/Genl.].