Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Pages: 143-151

Journal: ZooKeys

Volume number: 2019

Issue number: 876

ISSN: 1313-2989

eISSN: 1313-2970

Open access status: Gold

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.876.37244

Publisher: Pensoft Publishers

Abstract: 
Petrolisthes virgilius sp. nov. from the Caribbean Sea of Colombia is described. The new species resembles P. tonsorius morphologically but differs from it principally by its color and habitat. Petrolisthes tonsorius is brown or blueish brown and occurs under intertidal boulders strongly exposed to water movement. Petrolisthes virgilius sp. nov. is pale brown to beige and lives exclusively in intertidal areas dominated by vermetid snails, exposed to heavy wave action. The entangled tubular shells of vermetids are cemented to each other and to a hard substrate like beach rock, forming a microhabitat for the new crab species and other porcellanids of the genera Neopisosoma and Clastotoechus. Large genetic distances between DNA sequences of the mitochondrial 16S rDNA gene from P. virgilius sp. nov. and P. tonsorius confirmed that they comprise different species. Petrolisthes virgilius sp. nov. is the 53rd member of the West Atlantic porcellanid fauna.

Harvard Citation style: Hiller, A. and Werding, B. (2019) A new species of Petrolisthes (Crustacea, Anomura, Porcellanidae) inhabiting vermetid formations (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Vermetidae) in the southern Caribbean Sea, ZooKeys, 2019(876), pp. 143-151. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.876.37244

APA Citation style: Hiller, A., & Werding, B. (2019). A new species of Petrolisthes (Crustacea, Anomura, Porcellanidae) inhabiting vermetid formations (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Vermetidae) in the southern Caribbean Sea. ZooKeys. 2019(876), 143-151. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.876.37244