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? Melita palmata (Montagu).
? Melita palmata Stebbing, Das Tierreich Amphip., p. 425, 1906 (with synonymy).
Two males and one female from Coral Bay, Sunday Island, appear to belong to this species.
It is only with much hesitation that I refer these specimens to this species, which, according to Stebbing, is known only from the North Atlantic and surrounding seas. In all three specimens the fourth pleon segment is produced dorsally to a compressed tooth, and segment 5 bears two small denticles, each with a bristle at the base, exactly as described by Stebbing for M. palmata, and the resemblance is very close in practically all the other characters, except that the lower antenna is nearly as long as the upper, and the secondary appendage of the latter consists of more than two joints—three in one specimen, and four in the others. The first gnathopod of the male is not specially modified, but has the propod and dactyl of normal shape, as in the female. The second gnathopod has the propod greatly enlarged and widened distally, but not produced into the rounded lobe shown in Sars's figure; the palm is moderately well defined, and is
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rather convex, its margin being unevenly crenate; the dactyl is broad, subacute at extremity, and overlaps the propod.
There are some differences between my two male specimens, and it is evident from the account given by Stebbing that the gnathopods of this species have been differently described by different authors, the explanation probably being that these appendages vary considerably with age and sexual development.
The teeth on the pleon segments also show considerable variation in some of the species of Melita, so that the discrimination of the species is peculiarly difficult.
In the meantime I refer my specimens to M. palmata, the species to which they appear to agree most closely. They cannot be identified with the preceding species, M. inaequistylis, for they differ considerably in the teeth on the pleon segments and in the shape of the second gnathopod of the male; unless, indeed, we are here dealing with one cosmopolitan and variable species in which there are several forms of the male, as appears to be the case with the next species, Aora typica Kröyer.