Microparasellidae Karaman, 1934

Galassi, Diana M. P., Bruce, Niel L., Fiasca, Barbara & Dole-Olivier, Marie-Jose, 2016, A new family Lepidocharontidae with description of Lepidocharon gen. n., from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, and redefinition of the Microparasellidae (Isopoda, Asellota), ZooKeys 594, pp. 11-50 : 35-36

Taxon classification Animalia Isopoda Microparasellidae

Microparasellidae Karaman, 1934

Microparasellidae Synonymy: Karaman 1934: 44.-Wolff 1962: 35.-Coineau 1986: 465.-Kensley and Schotte 1989: 90.-Wilson and Wägele 1994: 720.

Diagnosis of male.

Body slender, 4.0 –6.0× long as wide, somites all subsimilar in width, head with acute or narrowly rounded rostrum. Lateral margins of head and pereionites convex, with cuticular scales; pleonite 1 laterally free; body without chromatophores. Eyes absent. Antennula flagellum with maximally 4 articles. Antennal scale absent. Antenna flagellum shorter than podomeres. Mandibular molar process distally pointed, without grinding surface, with several terminal setae. Pereiopods 1-7 not chelate or subchelate, almost identical in shape; all pereiopods with 2 dactylar claws. Pereiopods articulated latero-ventrally. Penial processes present, coalescent, with single medial opening on posterior margin of pereionite 7. Pleopods 1 and 2 not operculate in males; female pleopod 2 operculate; pleopod 3 endopod unarmed, exopod slender. Uropods uniramous, minute, stub-like, insertion ventro-terminal; single ramus, shorter than protopod. Anus terminal, not covered by pleopods.

Remarks.

The family Microparasellidae was ambiguously established by Karaman (1933) without formally stating family name anywhere in that publication. On the same occasion, the author described two new species of Microparasellus , namely Microparasellus puteanus Karaman, 1933 and Microparasellus stygius Karaman, 1933, but without designation of the type species for the genus Microparasellus , and without providing the name of the new family. One year later, Karaman (1934) formally proposed the family name Microparasellidae for the new family, also giving a family diagnosis and assigned two genera to the family: the then monotypic Microparasellus Karaman, 1933 ( Microparasellus puteanus ) and transferring Microparasellus stygius Karaman, 1933 to the new genus Microcharon Karaman, 1934 together with Microcharon latus Karaman, 1934 described in the same paper ( Karaman 1934).