Two new species of crayfish of the genus Cherax from Indonesian New Guinea (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae)

By

Lukhaup, Chris
Eprilurahman, Rury
Rintelen, Thomas von

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2018

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

769

Pages

89-116

Subjects

freshwater , molecular phylogeny , Morphology , New Guinea , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.769.26095

 

Abstract

Two new species of the genus Cherax are described and illustrated. Cheraxmosessalossa sp. n., endemic to the Klademak Creek drainage in Sorong, in the western part of the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia, is described, figured and compared with its closest relatives, Cheraxmisolicus Holthuis, 1949 and Cheraxwarsamsonicus. The new species may be easily distinguished from both by the shape of the rostrum, the shape of the chelae, the presence of five cervical spines, the shape of the scaphocerite, and short scattered hairs on the carapace. Cheraxalyciae sp. n., endemic to creeks in the Digul River drainage in the eastern part of the Boven Digoel Regency, Papua, Indonesia, is described, figured, and compared with its closest relative, Cheraxpeknyi Lukhaup & Herbert, 2008. The new species may be easily distinguished from Cheraxpeknyi by the shape of the chelae, presence of a soft patch on the chelae of the males, and colouration. A molecular phylogeny based on two mitochondrial gene fragments, 16S and COI, supports the morphology-based description of the two new species, which can also be clearly distinguished by sequence differences.