Chondrochelia Guţu, 2016

Chondrochelia: Guţu (2016): 49 –57.

Leptochelia Dana, 1849 (in part): Guţu (2016): 50 –51.

Remarks. The highly complex and heterogeneous genus Leptochelia was revised and broken up in a recent publication by Guţu (2016), resulting, in part, in the formation of Chondrochelia . This genus now holds most of the species formerly regarded as part of the Leptochelia dubia-savignyi group i.e. those species whose males have chelipeds that are “longer than the antennule but generally shorter than the body” (paraphrasing Guţu 2016: 50); these compare with the very long dimorphic chelipeds of Leptochelia sensu stricto and other new leptocheliid genera, namely Alloleptochelia Guţu, 2016, Kalloleptochelia Guţu, 2016, Paraleptochelia Guţu, 2016, and Ektraleptochelia Bamber & Marshall, 2015 (= Permixtimella Guţu, 2016; see Guţu & Bird 2017).

Defining females of Chondrochelia is more problematic, although several characters may be thought diagnostic if in combination: maxilliped endites with three tubercles (but five in C. bulbus Bamber, 2006); cheliped merus with three ventral setae, fixed finger with six (or more) distal setae; pereopod-1 merus with one superodistal and two inferodistal setae, dactylus longer than unguis; pereopods 2–3 merus with inferodistal crotchet and seta, pereopod-2 propodus with 2–3 distal setae and 1–3 inferodistal spines. As Guţu (2016) admits, there remains a considerable amount of variability and overlap in the genus.

If the Kermadecs are considered part of a wider Polynesian region, then C. acrolophus (Bird, 2015) represents this genus here together with C. dubia (Krøyer, 1842) (as Leptochelia dubia) from Hawai’i (Bailey-Brock 1984; Miller 1940). Other “ Leptochelia -like” species recorded from the Polynesian region are Alloleptochelia erythraea (Kossmann, 1880) and L. lifuensis from the Gambiers, and Leptochelia minuta Dana, 1849 and a Leptochelia sp. from Fiji (Borradaile (1900). Table 4 summarises the Chondrochelia species recorded from the wider Indo-Pacific region.