Melita panda, a new species of Melitidae (Crustacea, Amphipoda) from Japan

By

Tomikawa, Ko
Yamato, Shigeyuki
Ariyama, Hiroyuki

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1212

Pages

267--283

Subjects

intertidal zone , Melita panda , molecular phylogeny , Morphology , systematics , taxonomy , Wakayama

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1212.128858

 

Abstract

A new intertidal species of the melitid amphipod, Melita panda, from the Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, is identified and described. Melita pandasp. nov. differs from the similar M. koreana and M. nagatai by its black-and-white body color, well-developed anterodistal projection of the male gnathopod 1 propodus, and telson armature. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on the nuclear 28S rRNA and mitochondrial COI genes support that M. pandasp. nov. is closely related to M. koreana and M. nagatai.