Caprella scaura Templeton, 1836

Paz-Ríos, Carlos E., Guerra-García, José M. & Ardisson, Pedro-Luis, 2014, REVIEW ARTICLE Caprellids (Crustacea: Amphipoda) from the Gulf of Mexico, with observations on Deutella mayeri, redescription of Metaprotella hummelincki, a taxonomic key and zoogeographical comments, Journal of Natural History 48 (41 - 42), pp. 2517-2578 : 2528-2530

Caprella scaura Templeton, 1836

( Figure 4 )

Caprella scaura Templeton, 1836: 191–192 , pl. 20, fig. 6. Mayer, 1890: 70–74, pl. 4, figs 40–51, pl. 6, fig. 41, pl. 7, figs 2, 35, 36. Mayer, 1903: 117–120, pl. 5, figs 13– 18, pl. 10, fig. 11. McCain, 1968: 40–44, figs 17, 18. Arimoto, 1976; Ortiz et al., 2002, fig. 24. Guerra-García, 2003c: 4–5, fig. 2. Guerra-García and Takeuchi, 2003: 161–163, fig. 7. Foster, Heard, et al., 2004: 65, 67, figs 1, 2. Foster, Thomas, et al., 2004: 162, 170, fig. 8. Guerra-García, 2004: 31–34, fig. 27. Krapp et al., 2006: 2–4, figs 1–12. Rodríguez-Almaras and Ortega-Vidales, 2013: 989–990, fig. 2.

Caprella nodosa Templeton, 1836: 191–192 , pl. 21, fig. 7.

Caprella cornuta Dana, 1853: 816–817 .

Caprella attenuata Dana, 1853: 817–819 .

Type locality

Rivière Noire, Mauritius .

Distribution

Atlantic Ocean; Indian Ocean; Pacific Ocean; Mediterranean ( Guerra-García and Takeuchi 2003; Krapp et al. 2006; Guerra-García et al. 2011).

Records in the Gulf of Mexico

MEX: Laguna Madre ( Rodríguez-Almaras and Ortega-Vidales 2013). USA: St. Andrew Bay (Foster, Heard, et al. 2004; Foster, Thomas, et al. 2004); Aransas Bay ( Ahrens and Grubbs 2012).

Habitat

Caprella scaura has been recorded from bryozoans, seagrasses ( Lim and Alexander 1986; Takeuchi and Hino 1997; Guerra-García and Takeuchi 2003), sponges ( Serejo 1998), and seaweeds ( Guerra-García and Thiel 2001). In general, this species occurs on a wide variety of substrata indicating no specific habitat selection, see Guerra- García (2003c) and Guerra-García and Takeuchi (2003) for lists of substrata. In the Gulf of Mexico this species has been found on rocks associated with algae, seagrasses, hydroids, bryozoans, barnacles and fouling organisms (Foster, Heard, et al. 2004; Ahrens and Grubbs 2012; Rodríguez-Almaras and Ortega-Vidales 2013). The depth range reported is 0–17 m ( LeCroy et al. 2009).

Remarks

This caprellid is a species with complicated taxonomy, which shows wide morphological variation. Krapp et al. (2006) suggested seven subspecies of C. scaura ; of these subspecies, five lack a ventral spine on pereonite 2 and the remaining two have a ventral spine on pereonite 2. After a detailed description by Takeuchi and Oyamada (2013), one of those subspecies with a ventral spine ( C. scaura scauroides Mayer 1903 ) was recently elevated to species category. In the Gulf of Mexico, the acute anteriorly directed cephalic spine of C. scaura clearly distinguishes this species from C. equilibra and C. danilesvskii , both of which are without such a spine, and from C. andreae and C. penantis , both of which possess a triangular cephalic process. To date, the complete mitochondrial genome of C. scaura has been determined, which will be useful for explaining the phylogeography of this species ( Ito et al. 2010).

The worldwide distribution of C. scaura was recently revised by Guerra-García et al. (2011). These authors pointed out that C. scaura appears to be a strong invader, able to colonize a wide geographical range. For example, in the Gulf of Mexico there was only one record in the northern region (St Andrew Bay, Florida) by Foster, Heard, et al. (2004), but now this species has been recorded in another northern location (Aransas Bay, Texas) by Ahrens and Grubbs (2012) and in the southern region (Laguna Madre, Tamaulipas) by Rodríguez-Almaras and Ortega-Vidales (2013). These records from the Gulf of Mexico support a model of invasion worldwide.

Figures

Figure 4. Caprella scaura Templeton, 1836. Tamaulipas, Mexico; FCB-UANL C325-06316. Refigured from Rodríguez-Almaras and Ortega-Vidales (2013). Scale bar for male: 2.2 mm; scale bar for female: 1.1 mm.