P. Purushothaman

On Plesionika quasigrandisChace, 1985 (Decapoda, Caridea, Pandalidae) from southwestern India

The recent development of commercial deep-sea fisheries in India has mainly been off the southern coast and is based on shrimps (Rajan et al., 2001; Kurup et al., 2008; Rajool Shanis et al., 2014b). One of the dominant species in these catches is a pandalid shrimp previously reported as “Parapandalus (or Plesionika) spinipes” (e.g., Suseelan & Mohamed, 1968; Suseelan, 1974; Rajan et al., 2001; Kurup et al., 2008; Rajool Shanis et al., 2012; with the genus Parapandalus Borradaile, 1899 now generally synonymized with Plesionika Bate, 1888 (see Chace, 1985; De Grave & Fransen, 2011). Rajool Shanis et al. (2014a, b) later showed that this name was a misidentification of Plesionika quasigrandis Chace, 1985, which has the ventral rostral teeth more densely packed as opposed to P. spinipes, where the dorsal rostral teeth are more densely packed (see Chace, 1985; Chan & Crosnier, 1991). Although P. quasigrandis is one of the most important deep-sea shrimps in India from a commercial point of view, no proper taxonomic account has been given for the Indian material. The present study provides detailed taxonomic information of P. quasigrandis from India, together with molecular barcoding data.