Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781)

Naderloo, Reza & Türkay, Michael, 2012, Decapod crustaceans of the littoral and shallow sublittoral Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf: Faunistics, Biodiversity and Zoogeography 3374, Zootaxa 3374 (1), pp. 1-67 : 29

Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781)

Persian Gulf. Kuwait ( Jones 1986a), Bahrain ( Hornby 1997), UAE ( Apel 2001), Iran ( Pretzmann 1971; present study).

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Qeshm I. (Basaeedu, Plage-Simin), Bandar-Abbas, Bandar-Lengeh.

General distribution. Indo-West Pacific: East Africa, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Socotra, southern Oman (Dhofar), Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Andaman Sea, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia (Western Australia, Queensland), New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Fiji.

Habitat. Sandy shallow subtidal.

Remarks. Jones (1906a) and Pretzmann (1971) recorded Matuta lunaris (Forskål, 1775) from the Persian Gulf. Galil & Clark (1994) introduced a new genus, namely Ashtoret and moved M. lunaris to the new genus. Apel (2001) mentioned that the all records under the name of Matuta lunaris from the region are more probably Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) , whereas A. lunaris does not occur in the Persian Gulf. The present specimens from the Persian Gulf are slightly different from that described by Galil & Clark (1994), in particular regarding the morphology of the first male gonopod. We examined several specimens from different region of the Indo-West Pacific; there are some variations in the morphology of the first male gonopod among different regions, but no one found to be similar with that figured by Galil & Clark (1994: 43, figs a–b). There is a need for a thorough taxonomic revision of the widely distributed species Matuta victor in the Indo-West Pacific. The two species, M. victor and A. lunaris inhabit the low-intertidal towards the sub-littoral zone of sandy beaches, while during the present study only M. victor was collected along the Iranian coast.