The caudal appendix as an important character to identify various species in the genus Stenalpheops (Decapoda, Alpheidae)

The nominal genera Chelomalpheus Kim, 1998 and Cavipelta Hayashi, 1998 were treated as synonyms of Stenalpheops Miya, 1997 in the paper by Anker et al. (2001). Therefore, the type species of those genera (Chelomalpheus koreanus Kim, 1998 and Cavipelta yamashitai Hayashi, 1998, respectively) were synonymized with S. anacanthus Miya, 1997. Actually, those authors ignored that the morphological characters of the three species mentioned above show differences. For instance, all type specimens of Chelomalpheus koreanus Kim, 1998 are without a caudal appendix; the large male specimens of Cavipelta yamashitai Hayashi, 1998 have an abnormal shaped chela, which corresponds with the middle stage in a growth series of another nominal species, i.e., S. anacanthus. The opportunity to study abundant specimens from the China seas established that the type specimens of S. anacanthus Miya, 1997 are in fact composed of two species, and the same was found for the type specimens of Cavipelta yamashitai Hayashi, 1998; in addition, Chelomalpheus koreanus Kim, 1998 was found to be a valid species and is transferred to Stenalpheops; and S. crangonus (Anker, Jeng & Chan, 2001) is herein synonymized with S. anacanthus Miya, 1997, which name has priority, and this valid species is now re-described herein.

Affiliations: 1: ¹Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China ; 2: ²University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China