Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980

Romero Rodríguez, Jesús & Álvarez, Fernando, 2021, New hosts and distribution records for bopyrid isopods parasitising alpheid shrimps (Decapoda, Alpheidae) in the SW Gulf of Mexico and Mexican Caribbean, Journal of Natural History 54 (35 - 36), pp. 2219-2248 : 2227-2229

Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980

Figures 1 (b), 2(b), 4; Tables 1 and 2

?bopyrid. – Coutière, 1909: 52 [Unspecified locality, parasitising Synalpheus brevicarpus ].

‘branchial bopyrid’. – Chace, 1972: 95, 104 [ Tobago, parasitising S. minus ; Bahía de la Ascensión, Quintana Roo, Mexico, parasitising S. towsendi ].

‘bopyrid isopods’. – Hoetjes et al. 1976: 33 [ CuraÇao, parasitising ‘snapping shrimp’].

Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980: 221–228 , figs. 1–3 [type-locality Golfe de Gonáve, Haiti, parasitising S. bousfieldi , S. pectiniger , Synalpheus sp. (near S. longicarpus ) and Synalpheus sp. (near S. goodei ); St. Michielsbaai, CuraÇao, parasitising Synalpheus sp. ; west of Egmont Key, Florida, U.S.A., parasitising S. goodei ]. – Markham, 1982: 351, 354. – Bourdon, 1983: 863. – Markham 1985: 60, 61, figs. 25, 26 [Florida, U.S.A. parasitising S. longicarpus and S. minus ; Enriquillo, Dominican Republic, parasitising S. pectiniger ; southwest of Jamaica, parasitising S. pectiniger ; Bahía de la Ascensión, Quintana Roo, Mexico, parasitising S. towsendii ].– Markham, 1988: 57 table 1. – Kensley and Schotte, 1989: 110 table 2, 267 table 6. – Salazar- Vallejo and Leija-Tristan, 1990: appendix 1. – Markham and Donath-Hernández, 1990: 243. – Markham et al. 1990: 416. – Duffy, 1992: 133. – Camp et al. 1998: 133. – Román-Contreras, 2008: table 2. – Schotte et al. 2009: 981. – Román-Contreras and Martínez-Mayén, 2011: 1145–1146, 1148 [Laguna de Términos, Campeche, Mexico, parasitising S. apioceros ]. – An et al. 2015: 37, 39, 40, 41 in key. – Romero-Rodríguez and Martínez-Mayén, 2018: 1191 table 2.

‘cf. Probopyrus pandalicola ’. – Westinga and Hoetjes 1981: 141 table 1 [not Probopyrus pandalicola ].

Material examined

One adult female, three ovigerous females, one paired with a male (YUC-CC-255-11- 006555), parasitising four males of Synalpheus elizabethae ( Ríos and Duffy, 2007) (YUC- CC-255-11-000206), J . A . Duarte det . host; Arrecife Alacranes , Yucatán, Mexico (22º29 ʹ 16.12”N, 89º41 ʹ 5.89”W); N . Simões coll .; 8 June 2008. Three adult females paired with males and two ovigerous females, only one paired with a male (YUC-CC-255-11- 006556), parasitising five males of Synalpheus brooksi Coutière, 1909 (YUC-CC-255-11- 000185), J . A . Duarte det . host; Arrecife Alacranes , Yucatán, Mexico (22º35 ʹ 12.7”N, 89º44 ʹ 41.1”W); N . Simões coll .; 24 April 2011.

Distribution

Both coasts of Florida, U.S.A., Quintana Roo, Mexico, and the West Indies to CuraÇao ( Markham 1985).

Remarks

The frontal lamina of the female head was variable in form, including being absent, anterior margin slightly creased (two females), similar to that reported by Bourdon and Markham (1980, Figure (a)), to absent but with smooth anterior margin (two females), to a narrow, well-defined frontal lamina (three females) ( Figure 1 (b)), and two females with just a small piece of frontal lamina on a corner of the head. The eyes in all females are conspicuous and located near to the anterior margin of head ( Figure 1 (b)). The shape of the pereomeres, coxal plates and dorsolateral bosses fit the description of Bourdon and Markham (1980), but the number of pereomeres with these traits were consistently greater on the short side of body ( Figure 1 (b)). Overall, the shape of the first pair of oostegites ( Figure 4 (a)) agrees with previous descriptions ( Bourdon and Markham 1980, Figure 2 (d); Markham 1985, Figure 25E, F) but usually the oostegites were larger along the short side of the body than in the longer side. Three females that parasitised S. brooksi had the posterior segment of the first oostegite rectangular in shape ( Figure 4 (b,c)). The pleon was 1.59 ± 0.19 times broader than long (range 1.27–1.97), similar to the interval (1.30–1.64) proposed by Bourdon and Markham (1980). The pleon shape in five of the nine females differed from previous descriptions, having straight lateral margins on the shorter side instead of rounded ones ( Bourdon and Markham 1980, Figure 1 (a); Markham 1985, Figure 25(a, g)); and in three of them, the lateral margin of first pleomere was clearly indented ( Figure 4 (d)).

The head of the bopyrid males was oval-shaped, smaller than the first pereomere and with conspicuous eyes located on the posterolateral margins of head ( Figure 2 (b)). The number of segments and extension of the antennae, as well as the characteristics of the pereomeres, pereopods, and pleomeres fits well those mentioned by Bourdon and Markham (1980) for B. synalphei .

All the shrimps parasitised by B. synalphei were males. Host mean size was 2.68 ± 0.19 mm CL (range 2.40–2.83 mm) for S. elizabethae (n = 4) and 3.51 ± 0.49 mm CL (range 3.07–4.15 mm) for S. brooksi (n = 5). The parasite was attached more often in the host’s right branchial chamber (n = 8) than to the left one (n = 1). The sizes of the female and male of B. synalphei are shown in Table 1. Five ovigerous parasite females were recorded with a mean size of 1.75 ± 0.48 mm LT (range 1.31–2.42 mm), three with an evident embryo loss (one with 20 embryos on egg stage and two with less than 15 epicaridium larvae). Fecundity and embryo sizes of the females with a more compact brood mass are indicated in Table 2.

Bopyrione synalphei had been recorded from Bahía de la Ascensión, Quintana Roo ( Markham 1985; Markham and Donath-Hernández 1990; Markham et al. 1990) and Laguna de Términos, Campeche, ( Román-Contreras and Martínez-Mayén 2011); therefore, this is a new locality record. Synalpheus brooksi was reported as host of B. synalphei on reefs of the Panamanian Caribbean ( Duffy 1992) and parasitised by undetermined abdominal and branchial bopyrids in Antigua Islands, Tobago Cays and Mexican Caribbean ( Chace 1972). Synalpheus elizabethae was reported with a remarkably high incidence of unidentified abdominal and branchial bopyrids in Panama ( Ríos and Duffy 2007), whilst McGrew and Hultgren (2011) identified the branchial parasite of S. elizabethae as Bopyrione sp. , now we can confirm this alpheid as host for B. synalphei , increasing to nine the known hosts for this parasite, all belonging to Synalpheus : S. bousfieldi Chace, 1972 , S. brevicarpus (Henrrick, 1891) , S. brooksi , S. goodei Coutière, 1909 , S. longicarpus ( Herrick, 1891) , S. minus , S. pectiniger and S. townsendii Coutière, 1909 .

Figures

Figure 1. Bopyrid females parasitising Alpheus and Synalpheus shrimps at the SW Gulf of Mexico and Mexican Caribbean. a) Bopyrella harmopleon Bowman, 1956, YUC-CC-255-11-006553; b) Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980, YUC-CC-255-11-006555; c) Capitetragonia alphei (Richardson, 1900), CNCR 34973; d) Parabopyrella lata (Nierstraz and Brender à Brandis, 1929), CNCR 34974; e) Parabopyrella mortenseni (Nierstraz and Brender à Brandis, 1929), CNCR 34975; f) Eophrixus subcaudalis (Hay, 1917), CNCR 5254. Scale bar = 1.0 mm.

Figure 2. Bopyrid males parasitising Alpheus and Synalpheus shrimps at the SW Gulf of Mexico and Mexican Caribbean. a) Bopyrella harmopleon Bowman, 1956, YUC-CC-255-11-006553; b) Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980, YUC-CC-255-11-006556; c) Capitetragonia alphei (Richardson, 1900), CNCR 34973; d) Parabopyrella mortenseni (Nierstraz and Brender à Brandis, 1929), CNCR 34975; e) Eophrixus subcaudalis (Hay, 1917), CNCR 5254. Scale bar = 0.5 mm in a-b; 1.0 mm in c-e.

Figure 4. Bopyrione synalphei Bourdon and Markham, 1980. a) first oostegite of female parasitising Synalpheus elizabethae (YUC-CC-255-11-006556E), external view; b) first oostegite of female parasitising S. brooksi (YUC-CC-255-11-006555A), external view, c) same, internal view; d) Pleon of female parasitising S. elizabethae (YUC-CC-255-11-006556A), dorsal view. Scale bar = 0.5 mm.