PEREZ FARFANTE: KEY TO AMERICAN PACIFIC SHRIMPS, GENUS Traihyprnrarus 



MATERIAL 



Neotype.— ? , USNM 135398, Playas, Ecuador, 

 January 7, 1964, Ortiz, 28 mm carapace length, 

 110 mm total length, ratio length of spine/width 

 of terminal portion of telson = 0.25. 



Panama. 7 <i 21 9 , USNM, Playa Bella Vista, 

 March 20, 1955, M. D. Burkenroad. 3 5 , USNM, 

 Ensenada de Garachine, Bahia San Miguel, 16 m, 

 April 18, 1967, Sliimada Sta. 14. 3 9, USNM, 

 4 km W of Punta Garachine, 24 m, April 18, 1967, 

 Shlmada Sta. 78. Colombia. 7 9 , USNM, Tor- 

 tugas Grounds, S of Buenaventura, 9 m, Sep- 

 tember 19, 1969, L. W. Knapp, Cacique Sta. 

 LK69-24. Ecuador. 22 9, USNM, Playas, Jan- 

 uary 7, 1964, Ortiz. 1 ci 4 9 , USNM, Boca de 

 Tenguel, April 14, 1966, Ansaldo. 



TYPE MATERIAL 



Loesch and Avila (1964) did not cite any ma- 

 terial in particular; however, as the title of their 

 work indicates, the specimens studied and illus- 

 trated in their keys were from Ecuador. Because 

 of the close similarities between T. faoea and T. 

 fiischm it seems mandatory that a neotype of 

 T. faoea be selected, so that no confusion will 

 arise as to the identity of the species of Loesch 

 and Avila. Therefore, a neotype is here desig- 

 nated from a lot of females of Trachypenaens 

 faoea collected in Playas, Ecuador, which was 

 identified and sent to me by the authors of the 

 species. Inasmuch as the combination of spe- 

 cific morphological characters of this species 

 have not been indicated previously, they are pre- 

 sented here. 



"Trachypeneus faoe" first appeared in the 

 literature in the report of a survey of the shrimp 

 fisheries of Central and South America by Lind- 

 ner ( 1957) . This author grouped it with T. byrdi 

 as one of the "larger zebra shrimp," noting the 

 "blue-black" stripes on the abdomen and citing 

 various other common names. Lindner, obvi- 

 ously, did not intend to describe the species, and 

 did not include any specific character. He re- 

 ported "T. faoe" in the shrimp fisheries of the 

 American Pacific, from Mexico to Peru, includ- 

 ing El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, 

 and Ecuador. Later (U. S. Fish and Wildlife 



Service, 1962) the species was cited as one of 

 "medium and small" shrimp found in the catches 

 of Guatemala. 



The original description of the species ap- 

 peared in the keys to the commercial penaeid 

 shrimps of Ecuador by Loesch and Avila (1964) , 

 and was mistakenly ascribed to Burkenroad. As 

 stated by Avila and Loesch (1965), Burkenroad 

 had planned to describe the species, but had not 

 done so prior to the publication of their keys, nor 

 has his description appeared since. T. faoea was 

 distinguished from other penaeids found in the 

 Ecuadorian catches on the basis of four morpho- 

 logical characteristics and color pattern. The 

 following characters were cited: "No teeth on 

 ventral ]3ortion of rostrum. ... No well-devel- 

 oped dorsolateral sulcus on the posterior part of 

 the last abdominal segment. . . . Backward- 

 pointing dorsal spine on last abdominal segment 

 only. . . . Telson not armed with lateral arma- 

 ture." The first two characters are shared by 

 many species treated in their keys, and are actu- 

 ally supraspecific; the third character is common 

 to all but one (T. byrdi Burkenroad) of the 

 American Pacific Trachypenaeus, and the fourth 

 is inaccurate: T. faoea does possess small lat- 

 eral spines on the telson. 



The color of the species was described as fol- 

 lows: "Tail section light anteriorly and dark 

 posteriorly on each abdominal segment .... No 

 distinctive patterns on second and third abdom- 

 inal segments, each segment similarly colored 

 with wide dark band covering % the width of 

 ]iosterior part of each abdominal segment. More 

 than 1/2 of color of tail is dark (dark brown)." 

 An entire animal and a separate abdomen were 

 figured. In both illustrations the telson appears 

 unarmed. The figure of the entire animal is 

 accompanied by the rostral tooth formula. 



—FT-. Of the characters cited, color is the only 



one that appears to be typical of the species, and 

 it can only be applied to identification of fresh 

 or recently preserved animals. It is unfortunate 

 that circumstances prevented Loesch and Avila, 

 who dealt with large numbers of specimens, from 

 publishing a detailed description of T. faoea. 



T. faoea is very closely related to T. fuscina, 

 and except for the following, the above descrip- 



643 



