Booralana Bruce, 1986

Bruce, Niel L., Rawlins, Scott, Gutierrez, Robert, Brendan, Mackellar Violich & Schneider, Eric Vc, 2024, A new species of deep-sea Booralana Bruce, 1986 (Crustacea: Isopoda: Cirolanidae) from The Bahamas, Western North Atlantic, Zootaxa 5399 (3), pp. 254-264 : 256

Genus Booralana Bruce, 1986

Booralana Bruce, 1986: 136 .— Bruce et al. 2002: 141.

Type species: Cirolana bathynella Bruce, 1986 ; by original designation.

Remarks: Species of Booralana are relatively large in comparison to other cirolanid genera, ranging in size from 4 to less than 6 cm, whereas the majority of cirolanids are less than 3 cm in total length. There are only two cirolanid genera similar to or greater in size than Booralana : Parabathynomus Barnard, 1924 (see Kensley 1978) and Bathynomus Milne-Edwards, 1840 (see Lowry and Dempsey 2006). Bathynomus , with a size range of 10 cm to more than 35 cm, is huge in comparison to Booralana and morphologically distinct in most aspects of its morphology, most notably in being the only cirolanid genus with prominent spines on the posterior margin of the pleotelson, and conspicuous branchiae on the pleopod endopods. The monotypic Parabathynomus , known only from the Indian Ocean, off South Africa and southern Mozambique ( Kensley 1978), is the most similar genus to Booralana as indicated by Bruce (1986), and is only somewhat larger at 8 cm maximum length, and can be separated by respiratory branchiae and the exopods and peduncles of the pleopods.