Lanocira Hansen, 1890

Bruce, Niel L. & Sidabalok, Conni, 2011, The genus Lanocira Hansen, 1890 (Corallanidae: Isopoda: Crustacea) in tropical Australian waters, Zootaxa 2793, pp. 23-34 : 24

Lanocira Hansen, 1890

Lanocira Hansen, 1890: 395 .— Stebbing 1893: 346, 1904b: 706; 1905: 19.— Barnard 1914: 359; 1920: 354; 1955: 59.— Nierstrasz 1917: 102; 1931: 167.— Pillai 1967: 274; Kensley 1978: 75.— Delaney 1989: 41.— Javed & Yasmeen 1992: 11.

Nalicora Moore, 1902: 169 .— Richardson 1905: 163.— Menzies & Kruczynski 1983: 77.— Kensley & Schotte 1989: 168.

Type species. Lanocira kroyeri Hansen, 1890 ; by monotypy.

Remarks. Identification of species of Lanocira is problematic. Mature males of most species have a distinctive, possibly uniquely shaped rostral process. Females and immature males lack a rostral process, or it may be less developed. There is little difference in appendage morphology between species and perhaps consequently species have been moved in and out of synonymy as is the case for Lanocira gardineri . Furthermore some supposedly diagnostic characters, such as the rostrum and dorsal setae on the pleotelson, are apparently inconsistently present in the one species at one location.

Within Australian waters there are at least two ‘known undescribed’ species. A single specimen of Lanocira sp., closely similar to Lanocira anasicula Jones, 1982 (from Kenya) is here recorded from Western Australia ( Hibernia Reef: MTQ W17820). A series of specimens from the Australian Coral Sea Territory (Marion Reef: MTQ W10787, W10789; also Chesterfield Reefs: MTQ W10795, W10796) are similar to Lanocira gardineri , but lack a rostrum, have a more elongate body and some specimens have a sub-truncate pleotelson; these could not be confidently identified to species.

Corilana Kossmann, 1880 has sometimes been placed in synonymy with Lanocira (e.g. Delaney 1989), but Kossmann’s description and figures provide no conclusive evidence that Corilana is a junior synonym of Lanocira as opposed to Argathona Stebbing, 1905 . As the whereabouts of the type material are unknown (personal communication, see acknowledgements) and can reasonably be assumed to be lost, the genus and type species ( Corilana erythraea Kossmann, 1880: 115 , plate IX, figs 6–11) are here regarded as nomina dubia.

Delany (1989) has given the most recent overview of the genus, listing eight species. Only one further species has been described to date ( Yasmeen & Javed 2000), and that species is here placed in synonymy with Lanocira gardineri . With the species recorded herein there are ten species of Lanocira including Lanocira sp. recorded here. All species occur within the tropics with the exception of one record from Juan Fernandez Islands, southern Chile (cited in Delany 1989).