A new species of Automate (Crustacea: Decapoda) from the Persian Gulf

Abstract

During 2019, two specimens belonging to a new species of the alpheid shrimp genus Automate De Man, 1888 were collected from two islands in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. The new species is a member of the A. hayashii group which hitherto only comprised two species. However, the new species A. arturi can be separated from them by several morphological features: a shorter rostrum with rounded tip, a shorter stylocerite barely extending beyond the first antennular article, the scaphocerite not reaching to the end of the second antennular article, the third maxilliped coxa with a subtriangular-shaped lateral plate, the ischia of the first pereiopods (chelipeds) dorsally armed with spiniform setae and ventrally with a small tubercle, and the ischia of the walking pereiopods armed with a single ventrolateral spiniform seta.