Pilumnopeus vauquelini (Audouin, 1826)

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 : 38

Pilumnopeus vauquelini (Audouin, 1826)

Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia ( Basson et al. 1977), Bahrain ( Stephensen 1946), UAE ( Titgen 1982; Hornby 1997), Iran ( Stephensen 1946; present study).

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Qeshm I., Bandar-Hassineh, Bandar-Mogham, Moghdan . Bushehr Province: Khalij-Nayband (Haleh).

General distribution. Northwestern Indian Ocean: Red Sea, Persian Gulf, entered via the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean ( Galil 2011).

Habitat. Rocky/cobble with weeds and sandy/muddy intertidal to 11 m.

Remarks. Apel (2001) examined material recorded as P. vauquelini by Stephensen (1946) and Basson et al. (1977) from the Persian Gulf and identified them as P. convexus . Apel (2001) believed that P. vauquelini does not occur in the Persian Gulf. He mentioned four morphologic characters allowing to distinguish these two closely related species (see Apel 2001: 99). Stephensen (1946) figured the male first gonopod, which is nearly similar to that of the present specimens of P. vauquelini . The present finding of the species confirms its occurrence in the Persian Gulf, although a thorough taxonomic work is necessary in order to establish the systematic position of these two species.