A new species of Polyonyx (Crustacea, Anomura, Porcellanidae) inhabiting polychaete-worm tubes (Annelida, Chaetopteridae) in the Indo-West Pacific.

ABSTRACT: Polyonyxsocialis sp. n. from the South China Sea of Vietnam is described. The new species was collected in a previous study that compared the vertebrate and invertebrate symbiont communities living in the tubes of two syntopic species of the polychaete genus Chaetopterus. Polyonyxsocialis sp. n. inhabits the tubes of the smaller polychaete species as a heterosexual pair, and frequently shares the cavity of the host's tube with a larger porcellanid, P.heok, also present as a male-female pair, and with a species of trinchesiid nudibranch. Less frequently, the new species shares its host with a heterosexual pair of a larger species of pinnotherid crab. Polyonyxsocialis sp. n. belongs to the P.sinensis group, a world-wide distributed morphological line within the heterogeneous genus Polyonyx.

SUBMITTER: Werding B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6345737 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature