Uday Raj

A New Species of Paracaesio (Pisces: Lutjanidae) from the Fiji Islands

A new species of deep water lutjanid, Paracaesio stonei, is described from 2 specimens caught in Fiji waters at a depth of 220 m. The new species is distinctly different from Paracaesio kusakarii and Paracaesio gonzalesi which also occur in Fiji waters. It differs from Paracaesio kusakarii in possessing a naked maxillary, in lacking the characteristic hump on the head and in having larger eyes and more prominent dentition. It is easily distinguishable from Paracaesio gonzalesi by the notable absence of the yellow slash running to the 10th dorsal spine from the beginning of the lateral line, caudal fin coloration, and the much deeper body. The gill raker count in P. stonei is 28, compared to 31 in P. gonzalesi, based on two specimens of the former and three individuals of the latter species examined from Fiji waters. ABE and Shinohara (1962) reviewed all the Paracaesio species then known and described a new species. These were Paracaesio caeruleus (Katayama), Paracaesio cantharoides (Barnard), Paracaesio kusakarii Abe, Paracaesio xanthurus (Bleeker), Paracaesio pedleyi McCulloch and Waite, Paracaesio tumidus (Tanaka) and Paracaesio sordidus Abe and Shinohara. Fourmanoir and Rivaton (1979) described a new species, Paracaesio gonzalesi. Until now, the genus has consisted of 8 species of Indo-West Pacific distribution. Two specimens of a new species of Paracaesio were caught recently by Robert Stone on the eastern slope of the outer reef of Beqa Islands in the Fiji Group. We describe this ninth species here. The two other species of Paracaesio from Fiji are P. gonzalesi and P. kusakarii.

Polyclad turbellarians collected on the Osaka University Expedition to Viti Levu, Fiji, in 1985, with remarks on distribution and phylogeny of the genus Discoplana

We report the first records from Viti Levu, Fiji, for four species of polyclad turbellarians: Discoplana gigas (Schmarda), Paraplanocera oligoglena (Schmarda), Cestoplana cuneata Sopott-Ehlers et Schmidt, and Pericelis byerleyana (Collingwood). D. gigas has the widest distribution in the Indo-West Pacific among the six described species of Discoplana, and shows a wider range of color variation than has been attributed to it before. Analysis of morphological features in these species reveals that Discoplana can be divided hierarchically into several sister-species groups based upon differences in structure of the vagina and of the penis. Four species, occurring mainly in the Pacific, share an apomorphic feature of the vagina, a feature not seen in the other two from the Indian Ocean. This suggests that Discoplana originated in the Indo-West Pacific.