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Abstract
This common New Zealand marine littoral shump is reteried to the subgenus Palaemon s.s. All previous distributional records are critically examined and the South African, Australian and South American records are regarded as doubtful. The external morphology is described in detail, and a brief comparison made with P. serratus and P. elegans of European waters and P. northropi of West Indian waters.
The majority of species in the Natantia were long known in the literature only by curt diagnoses such that confusion between species has taken place in the past and some “species” have been credited with an extensive distribution. This has occurred in the case of the commonest New Zealand marine littoral shrimp, Palaemon affinis M -Edwards, 1837, for which as yet there has been no complete morphological account. Holthuis (1952) states that in an earlier paper he demonstrated a confusion of species in that P. affinis was formerly regarded as having a south circumpolar range but extending in the Atlantic at least up to the West Indies. Holthuis has shown that the species of Palaemon occurring in the western Atlantic from Uruguay to the West Indies is P. northropi (Rankin. 1898) and records of P. affinis from those waters are erroneous. There are also now grounds to consider the circumpolar range of P. affinis as doubtful. Krauss (1843) recorded P. quoianus (syn. of P. affinis) from the coast of Natal, South Africa. Lenz and Strunck (1914) describing specimens from the German South Polar Expedition 1901–03, collected in Cape Town Harbour and Stebbing (1914) describing specimens from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902–04, collected at Saldanha and Reitz Bays, South Africa, both place them as P. affinis, and on the descriptions given the animals could belong to P. affinis. The data given clearly indicates the subgenus Palaemon but specific identification requires re-examination of the material. Miers (1876) has listed P. affinis from the Cape of Good Hope and the Falkland Islands, indicating possible unrecorded early specimens in the British Museum labelled as from these localities. Thomson's (1903) and Chilton's (1909) Falkland Islands records are probably fide Miers. Balss (1929) in a distributional chart showing the circumpolar distribution of this species, uses these records; but Barnard (1950) in his excellent comprehensive account, reports that he has been unable to confirm the presence of the species in South Africa even at the localities given by Krauss, Stebbing, and Lenz
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and Strunck. Records of the species in Australian waters are also now doubtful Although Spence Bate (1888) describes and figures typical specimens from Port Jackson, Sydney, and both Thomson (1903) and Chilton (1909) refer to the species as occurring in Australia and Tasmania, both these Australian records probably being fide Bate, Haswell (1882) working at Sydney and Hale (1927) working at Adelaide have no reference to the species in Australian or Tasmanian waters. It is probable then that Spence Bate was handling erroneously labelled specimens. Barnard (1950) restricts the distribution of P. affinis to the West Indies and New Zealand without discussion on the occurrence in the former. Balss (1929) in his circumpolar distributional chart (p. 206) records P. affinis from the Magellan region of Chile but gives no authority for this record, nor is it mentioned in his text. Neither Doflein and Balss (1912) describing material from the Hamburg Magellan Expedition 1892–93, nor Ortmann (1911) describing the Crustacea of the Princeton University Expedition to Patagonia 1896–99, record P. affinis from these regions. Also Holthuis (1952) in an account of the Palaemoninae of the Americas does not include this species in that faunal list, but restricts it to the New Zealand coast. It is suggested therefore that Balss's unsupported record could well be an error during the preparation of his chart. Filhol (1886) records P. affinis from Campbell Island. The New Zealand Subantarctic Islands records of Thomson (1903), Chilton (1909) and Balss (1929) are all apparently based on Filhol. Chilton does not refer to any specimen collected by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury Subantarctic Islands Expedition, 1907, in his account of the Crustacea. The collections of Natantia from the Cape Expedition are not available, but a small collection made by Mr. J. H. Sorensen at Campbell Island contains no P. affinis, although this includes a shoreline collection.
The type locality of P. affinis is given as New Zealand, the species beingnamed by Milne-Edwards (1837) from material which was not well enough preserved for him to give a complete description. He stated that it resembled P. squilla (Linnaeus, 1758), a. European species, differing only by the fact that the second pair of legs were shorter than in P. squilla. Following this brief account of P. affinis, Milne-Edwards gives a description of P. quoianus based on material collected in New Zealand by Quoy and Gaimard, naturalists on the “Astrolabe” during d'Urville's second visit to New Zealand, 1826–1829. The two species were recognised as the same by Miers, Thomson and others, with P. affinis having page priority. P. quoianus was described by M.-Edwards as very similar to P. squilla, though in this case he was able to give a short description. Thus the following intimately detailed account of the external morphology of typical specimens from various localities around the New Zealand coast and from the Chatham Islands has value in providing a basis for the checking of specimens similar to this species taken in other countries, so that the true range for P. affinis may be finally determined.
The following briefly sets out the records of P. affinis as formerly accepted other than for the West Atlantic:
1843. Palaemon quoianus Krauss, Südafrik. Crust. : 55. (South African record.) 1843. Palaemon quoianus White, Dieffenb. Voy. N.Z. II: 268. (N.Z. record.) 1852. Palaemon affinis Dana, U.S. Explor. Exped. Crust.: 584 (Descr., N.Z. record.); 1855 Atlas, Pl. 38, Fig. 5 a-g. 1876. Leander affinis Miers, Cat.
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N.Z. Crust.: 85 (Descr., N.Z., Falkland Is. and S. African records.) 1886. Leander affinis Filhol, Miss. Ile. Campbell, Zool., 3 (2) : 434 (Campbell Island record.) 1888. Palaemon affinis Spence Bate, “Challenger” Macrura: 782, Pl. 128, Fig. 5 (Descr., Fig., Australian record.) 1903. Palaemon affinis Thomson, Trans. Linn. Soc. ser. 2, VIII (ii): 450 (Descr. N.Z. record.) 1909. Palaemon affinis Chilton, Subantarctic Is. N.Z. ii: 614 (N.Z., Australian, Tasmanian, Falkland Is. and S. African records.) 1910. Palaemon quoianus Stebbing, Ann. S. Afri. Mus. VI: 384 (Krauss's S. African record.) 1911. Leander affinis Chilton, Rec. Cant. Mus. I (3): 305 (Chatham Is. record.) 1912. Palaemon affinis Thomson, T.N.Z.I. XLV: 240 (N.Z. record.) 1914. Leander affinis Lenz and Strunck, Deutsch Südpolarexpedition, 15 Zoo. 7 (3): 322 (Descr. S. African record.) 1914. Leander affinis Stebbing, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. 50: 287 (Descr. South African record.) 1921. Palaemon affinis Thomson, N.Z. Board Sci. Art. Bull. 2:107 (N.Z. record.) 1925. Leander affinis Kemp, Rec. Ind. Mus. XXVII: 292 (N.Z., Chatham Is. and S. African records.) 1925. Leander quoianus Kemp, Rec. Ind. Mus. XXVII: 294 (close to P. affinis) 1929. Leander affinis Balss, Senckenbergiana 11:206 (Chile, N.Z., Subartarctic Is. and S. African records.) 1950. Leander affinis, Leander quoianus Barnard, Ann. S. Afri. Mus. XXXVIII: 781, 783 (review of S. African records.) 1952. Palaemon affinis Holthuis, Allan Hancock Foun. Occ. pap. 12:196 (Comparison with P. northropi.)