Tanaella Norman & Stebbing, 1886

Drumm, David T. & Bird, Graham J., 2016, New deep-sea Paratanaoidea (Crustacea: Peracarida: Tanaidacea) from the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, Zootaxa 4154 (4), pp. 389-414 : 398-399

Tanaella Norman & Stebbing, 1886

Diagnosis (see Larsen 2005).

Remarks. This genus currently comprises 17 species including the one described here. It is recognized by a large antennule article-2, pincer-like uniramous uropods that have much-reduced, vestigial, or absent, fused exopods and, like Collettea , females almost invariably lack pleopods (exceptions being Tanaella dongo Bamber, 2005 , T. forcifera (Lang, 1968) and T. kommritzia Larsen & Shimomura, 2007 ). However, the last character is open to some confusion when assigning a sex to a particular specimen of Tanaella . Males (or at least sub-adult or “preparatory” males) can be distinguished with care by their slightly enlarged antennules compared to those of females. Ideally the presence of pleopods in females of this genus should be confirmed by their association with at least oostegite buds if not a complete marsupium.

Tanaella was revised fairly recently ( Larsen & Heard 2004), and since then new species have been discovered in the Antarctic ( Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz 2004), Western Australia ( Bamber 2005) , Japan ( Larsen & Shimomura 2007), and Brazil ( Larsen et al. 2009). It is cosmopolitan and primarily a deep-water taxon, found in relatively shallow water (38 m) down to abyssal depths (5450 m) .

Type species. Tanaella unguicillata Norman & Stebbing, 1886 , eastern North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea.

Other species. Tanaella busteri n. sp., Gulf of Mexico; T. dongo Bamber, 2005 , Esperance Bay , western Australia ; T. eltaninae Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004 , Antarctica ; T. forcifera (Lang, 1968) , Acapulco-Panama transect; T. kimi Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004 , Antarctica ; T. kommritzia Larsen & Shimomura, 2007 , Boso Peninsula, Japan; T. kroyeri Larsen & Araújo-Silva in Larsen et al., 2009 , deep central Atlantic , off Brazil ; T. mclellandi Larsen & Heard, 2004 , Gulf of Mexico; T. ochracea (Hansen, 1913) , North Atlantic ; T. paraforcifera (Lang, 1968) , Madagascar-Mombasa; T. profunda Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004 , Angola Basin, South Atlantic; T. prolixcauda Larsen & Heard, 2004 , Gulf of Mexico ; T. propinquus Dojiri & Sieg, 1997 , Santa Maria Basin, California to Baja California, Mexico; T.

rotundicephala Sieg, 1986 Antarctica ; T. tuberculata Kudinova-Pasternak, 1989 , Indian Ocean; T. unisetosa Sieg, 1986 Antarctica .