Paraeuchaeta comosa Tanaka 1958

Euchaeta comosa (Tanaka, 1958)

Pareuchaeta comosa Tanaka, 1958:363, fig. 79a-g [female only].

Pareuchaeta dubia.—Tanaka and Omori, 1968:234, figs. 3G, 4G, [female only].

Pareuchaeta hanseni —Tanaka, 1958:362, fig. 78g-h [male only].

Euchaeta regalis Grice and Hulsemann, 1968:331, figs. 41–48 [male only].

Not Pareuchaeta comosa Tanaka, 1958:123, fig. 79A-; [male only] [=P. calva Tanaka, 1958].

MALE.—Body length based on 4 specimens, 7.75– 8.08 mm. Prosome length, 5.41–5.75 mm. Frontal eminence of forehead inconspicuous. Rostrum elongated, pointing downward (Figure 10d). Posterolateral corners asymmetrical, each with a low toothlike process dorsally. Antennule reaching about distal end of second urosomal segment. Exopod of first leg 3-segmented, with external spines of reduced size. Endopod of second leg 1-segmented. Third exopodal segment (Figure 10e) with an unusually deep incision posterior to second external spine as in the female. Serrated lamella gradually narrowed distally, terminating in a blunt end armed with several large teeth (Figure 10f). Internal margin finely serrated. External margin naked. Digitiform process large, with somewhat swollen, round distal end reaching close to distal end of serrated lamella.

DISTRIBUTION.—Euchaeta comosa has so far been known to occur off the Pacific coast of Middle Japan by Tanaka (1958) and Tanaka and Omori (1968, as Pareuchaeta dubia) and in the southeastern Pacific (as the male of E. regalis) by Grice and Hulsemann (1968). In the present study, the species was represented by 24 females and 4 males, all of which were found in tows down to depths exceeding 1000 m in the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean Sea, and these findings constitute the first record of the species in the Atlantic Ocean.