Phylladiorhynchus cf. janiqueae Rodríguez-Flores, Macpherson & Machordom, 2021

Botha, Thomas P. A., Griffiths, Charles L., Atkinson, Lara J. & Macpherson, Enrique, 2025, The Galatheidae (Anomura: Galatheoidea) of South Africa, with a description of a new species, Zootaxa 5661 (3), pp. 330-350 : 342-343

Phylladiorhynchus cf. janiqueae Rodríguez-Flores, Macpherson & Machordom, 2021

Phylladiorhynchus integrirostris .— Tirmizi & Javed, 1993: 33, fig. 15.

Phylladiorhynchus janiqueae Rodríguez-Flores et al., 2021: 59 , figs. 21H, 22, 54E; Macpherson et al., 2023: 383.

Global distribution. Southwestern Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Reunion Island, Walter Shoals, 18–98 m, and now South Africa.

South African distribution. East of Ballito , KwaZulu-Natal, 138 m ( Fig. 5 ) .

Remarks. The South African material collected by the IIOE I was originally identified as P. integrirostris by Tirmizi & Javed (1980, 1993). According to Schnabel & Ahyong (2019), P. integrirostris senso stricto is now restricted to the Hawaiian Archipelago, with other populations referred to other species. Subsequently, Rodriguez-Flores et al. (2021) described P. janiqueae from Madagascar, Reunion and Walters Shoal and they argued that the South African material is likely to be this new species, as the description from Tirmizi & Javed (1980, 1993) agrees well with their description. Unfortunately, neither Rodriguez-Flores et al. (2021), nor this study (for the same reason as for G. pubescens , the material is not in the Smithsonian, as indicated in the original publication), have had the opportunity to examine the South African material. The status thus remains unconfirmed and hence given an cf. notation. This species was collected in the same sampling event as G. cf. pubescens and Trapezionida cf. sphinx ( Macpherson & Baba, 1993) .

Figures

FIGURE 5. Marine ecoregions in South African waters (Sink et al. 2019) with distribution of species in the genera Allogalathea, Lauriea and Phylladiorhynchus superimposed.