FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 75. NO. 2 



A 



B 



L 



FIGURE 63.— Mesopenaeus tropicalis, 6 19 mm cl, south of Great Inagua, Bahama Islands. A, 

 Left spermatophore dissected from terminal ampulla (wing slightly displaced), ventrolateral 

 view. B, Dorsomesial view (dorsal plate removed). 



the thelycum. Unlike the release of the sperm 

 masses in certain members of the subgenus Lito- 

 penaeus (genus Penaeus) the sperm appears to be 

 liberated in M. tropicalis without a rupture of 

 the spermatophore. 



Three females with spermatophores attached 

 were examined by me. The smallest of these speci- 

 mens, 12 mm cl, was caught off Savannah, Ga., 

 at Silver Bay stn 3658. The other two were 19.5 

 mm cl, and one was taken south of St Vincent 

 Island at Oregon stn 896 and the other off Gulf 

 Beach at Oregon stn 1254, both localities off 

 northwestern Florida. 



Remarks.-ln his original brief diagnosis oiParar- 

 temesia tropicalis, Bouvier ( 1905b) stated that the 

 species is from the "mer des Antilles," where it 

 had been collected between 80 and 175 fm (146 

 and 320 m), during a cruise of the Blake; he cited 

 neither the number of specimens he had examined 

 nor the locality where they had been found. Later, 

 he (1906b) mentioned the same shrimp (including 

 it among the species of the genus Haliporus 

 found in the tropical subtropical Atlantic) as 

 occurring in the "Antilles." However, A. Milne 

 Edwards and Bouvier ( 1909) — in a rather detailed 

 account of various morphological features of the 

 female of the species, including the thelycum — 



referred to the same specimen (17.5 mm cl, about 

 74 mm tl), as the "type," and added the following 

 information: "Habitat, . . . — Blake: Florida Bank, 

 lat. N. 26° 31', long. O. 85° 03', 119 brasses.— Le 

 type femelle decrit plus haut." Furthermore, on 

 plate 3, eight figures are explicitly identified as 

 parts of the "type." A. Milne Edwards and Bouvier 

 also recorded and illustrated a smaller female, 

 "25 a 30 mm de longeur" (5.5 mm cl, about 

 27 mm tl), from Barbados taken in 76 fm (139 m) 

 which, according to a label dated 1907, in 

 Bouvier's handwriting, is a "cotype juvenile," 

 evidently thus designated during the course of the 

 investigations published 2 yr later. The minimum 

 depth of the bathymetric range (80-175 fm) origin- 

 ally given for the species is only slightly greater 

 than that at which the small female was collected, 

 but the maximum depth is considerably deeper 

 than that reported for the larger female, suggest- 

 ing that the authors had examined additional 

 specimens. Of the material first studied by 

 Bouvier, these two females are the only specimens 

 of this species known to have been taken during 

 cruises of the Blake and, furthermore, the small 

 one was identified by Bouvier on a piece of paper 

 accompanying the specimen in the bottle as Parar- 

 temesia tropicalis, i.e., within the genus pro- 

 posed in 1905. Consequently, I am convinced that 



340 



