Upogebiidae Borradaile, 1903

Dworschak, Peter C. & Poore, Gary C. B., 2018, More cautionary tales: family, generic and species synonymies of recently published taxa of ghost and mud shrimps (Decapoda: Axiidea and Gebiidea), Zootaxa 4394 (1), pp. 61-76 : 71

Family Upogebiidae Borradaile, 1903

Upogebiinae Borradaile, 1903: 542 .

Upogebiidae .—de Saint Laurent 1973: 516 (diagnosis).—de Saint Laurent & LeLoeuff 1979: 35. KuWaitupogebiidae Sakai, Türkay & Al Aidaroos, 2015: 1223 . Syn. nov.

Remarks. Sakai et al. (2015a: 1223) justified their new family in this way: “(1) the rostrum is indiscernible on the anterior margin of the carapace (vs. it is good-sized and distinct, protruding anteriorly); (2) the eyestalks are short, stout, and contiguous to each other, located just in front of the anterior margin of the carapace (vs. they are rather long and not contiguous to, but separated from each other, and located anterolaterally behind the distinct rostrum); (3) the A1 is not in parallel with the A2, but directed inwards from the proximal part of the A2, and then upturned [comparable as in the species of the family Diogenidae …] (vs. it is in parallel with the A2, and not upturned); (4) the linea thalassinica is absent (vs. it is present).” It is difficult to interpret from this exactly how the relationship between the antennules and antennae differs from that in other species. But examination of the holotype on which the family is based has shown that all four characters are within the range of several species of Upogebia , and that the holotype belongs to a well known species. The synonymy of Kuwaitupogebidae with Upogebiidae follows (see below).