Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos, Volume 23 [Memoires du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Volume 191]

About this book

Language: Eight English and one Frech chapter, all with bilingual summaries in English and French

Volume 23 of Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos (which is volume 191 in the parent series Mémoires du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle) contains nine contributions by experts from Great Britain, Japan, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, the United States, and France. There is one paper each on hexactinellid sponges, pycnogonids, flatfishes, and six on decapod crustaceans which are a recurrent speciality of the Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos series. Of the 226 species reported, described and illustrated in the present volume, no less than 82 (36%) are new. Of particular interest in this volume is the review of Sympagurus hermit crabs, some of which live in symbiosis with sea-anemones or zoantharians than can produce pseudo-shells. Armored deep-sea shrimps of the genus Glyphocrangon are revealed to be far more diverse than previously appreciated, with their total number more than doubled as the result of the present study, and examination of galatheids from Fiji and Tonga confirms the south-west Pacific as the center of species richness for these crustaceans. The improbable colour patterns of shrimps of the genus Plesionika, some of which with brilliant target-like markings, are illustrated in colour plates.

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Biography

Bruce Marshall is curator of molluscs in the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, and Bertrand Richer de Forges is senior scientist at the New Caledonia branch of Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD).