Comprehensive Description
provided by Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology
Pontonia pinnophylax (Otto, 1821)
Palaemon pinnophylax Otto, 1821:12.
Pontonia pinnophylax.—Chace,1966:626, fig. 1.
MATERIAL.—Grice Marine Biological Laboratory Collection: Sta 80-71, Pyramid Point, 10 m: 1 male, 1 ovig. female (GMBL).
Operation Origin: Site 15, Lady’s Loo, in hooked Pinna shell, 6 m: 1 female [6.3].—Site 21?, “China” Wreck, off Georgetown, in live Pinna shell, 10 m: 1 female [9.5].
Other Collections: Vickrey (1963), South West Bay, in “Atrina rigida,” 9 m: 1 male [8.3], 1 female with remains of hatched eggs [9.8].—Dennis, English Bay, 18–27 m: 1 male [13.3], 1 ovig. female [10.8].—Olson (1971), from “pen shells”: 4 males [9.9–10.5], 3 females [9.9–12.0], 1 ovig [11.1].
SIZE.—Carapace lengths of males, 8.3–13.3 mm; of females, 6.30–12.0 mm; of ovigerous females,10.8–11.1 mm.
HABITAT.—Probably all of the Ascension specimens occurred in Pinna rudis Linnaeus, the only pen shell recorded thus far from that Island according to Rosewater (1975), in depths of 9–27 meters.
DISTRIBUTION.—Mediterranean Sea and western Africa as far south as northern Angola, Azores; central Atlantic from St. Helena and Ascension; commensal in bivalve mollusks of the genus Pinna.
- bibliographic citation
- Manning, Raymond B. and Chace, Fenner Albert, Jr. 1990. "Decapod and stomatopod crustaceans from Ascension Island, south Atlantic Ocean." Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. 1-91. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810282.503
