A new chemosymbiotic bivalve species of the genus Acharax Dall, 1908 (Bivalvia, Solemyida, Solemyidae) from the Haima cold seep of the South China Sea

By

Yang, Mei
Li, Baoquan
Gan, Zhibin
Dong, Dong
Li, Xinzheng

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1198

Pages

185--192

Subjects

Acharax haimaensis sp. nov , Bathyal , deep-sea , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1198.112618

 

Abstract

Solemyidae is an ancient group of protobranch bivalves that typically inhabit unusual environments, such as deep-sea chemosynthetic environments, and are symbiotic with chemoautotrophic and gill-hosted bacteria. In May 2018, a living solemyid bivalve was collected using a remotely operated vehicle at a depth of 1,390 m from the Haima cold seep in the northwestern slope of the South China Sea. Through a comprehensive taxonomic approach combining morphological observations and molecular phylogeny reconstruction of concatenated mitochondrial COI,16S rRNA and 18S rRNA gene sequences, a new species, Acharax haimaensissp. nov. is identified and described. The discovery of this new species contributes to the diversity of known solemyids in deep-sea chemosynthetic environments.