Hirondellea Chevreux, 1889

Lowry, J. K. & Stoddart, H. E., 2010, The deep-sea scavenging genus Hirondellea (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Lysianassoidea: Hirondelleidae fam. nov.) in Australian waters, Zootaxa 2329 (1), pp. 37-55 : 38-39

Hirondellea Chevreux, 1889

Hirondellea Chevreux, 1889: 285 . ― Stebbing, 1906: 16. ― Gurjanova, 1962: 88. ― J.L. Barnard, 1969: 345. ― Barnard & Ingram, 1990: 7. ― Barnard & Karaman, 1991: 490.

Tetronychia Stephensen, 1923: 63 . ― Schellenberg, 1926: 251 [type species Tetronychia abyssalis Stephensen, 1923 by monotypy].

Type species. Hirondellea trioculata Chevreux, 1889 , by original designation.

Species composition. Hirondellea includes 16 species: Hirondellea abyssalis ( Stephensen, 1923) ; H. antarctica ( Schellenberg, 1926) ; H. brevicaudata Chevreux, 1910 ; H. diamantina sp. nov.; H. dubia Dahl, 1959 ; H. endeavour sp. nov.; H. fidenter J.L. Barnard, 1966 ; H. franklin sp. nov.; H. gigas ( Birstein & Vinogradov, 1955) ; H. glutonis Barnard & Ingram, 1990 ; H. guyoti Barnard & Ingram, 1990 ; H. kapala sp. nov.; H. naturaliste sp. nov.; H. sindhusagar Horton & Thurston, 2009 ; H. trioculata Chevreux, 1889 ; H. wolfendeni ( Tattersall, 1909) comb. nov.

Remarks. The taxon Hirondellea wolfendeni is newly included here as a species of Hirondellea . Tattersall (1909) originally assigned it, with some doubts, to the genus Anonyx where it has remained ever since. The characteristic maxilla 1 with subterminal notch on the palp and one of the inner plate setae very broad at the base, clearly place this species in the genus Hirondellea .

Based on the misleading illustration (fig. 9) of Stephensen (1923), Gurjanova (1962), Barnard & Ingram (1990) and Horton & Thurston (2009) all key H. abyssalis as having the inner ramus of uropod 2 constricted. Stephensen (1923: 64) noted of uropod 2 that "… in the right side only the proximal part of outer ramus is kept, the inner ramus is totally lost; and in the left up. 2 both of the rami are very short and seem to be in regeneration ...". We have looked at Stephensen's slide and found no constriction on the uropod 2 inner ramus. We suspect that even if it were regenerating it would show some sign of the constriction. The species has never been re-collected. We cannot say for certain whether H. abyssalis uropod 2 inner ramus is constricted or not but the current evidence suggests that it is not constricted and that it should not be recorded as constricted.

Distribution. Hirondelleids have been recorded from all major ocean bodies except the South Atlantic Ocean, the southern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Polar Sea.