A research group consisting of Tokyo Agricultural University, Chiba Prefectural Central Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and NPO "Mori wa Umi no Koibito" (Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture) has created a new species of shrimp (decapod crustacean) in a river in Kesennuma City. Discovered.This is the second freshwater species native to Japan.
The research group has been monitoring the flora of bottom animals (Bentos) in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture since 2012 as part of a survey aimed mainly at the conservation of wetlands created by the tsunami and land subsidence caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the surrounding waters. Is going.In the process, Yuichi Katogi, a first-year doctoral student at Tokyo University of Agriculture, collected shrimp with morphological characteristics that have not been reported so far, although they are classified into the genus Shrimp.
This shrimp is morphologically similar to the so-called "river shrimp", which is a genus of prawns that is widely distributed in Japan, but the scissors on the chest and legs are longer than those of the prawns.As a result of scrutiny of the specimen by Dr. Tomoyuki Komai of the Chiba Prefectural Central Museum, it was found to be a new species.The results are also supported by molecular phylogenetic analysis.
Based on the specimens held by the Chiba Prefectural Central Museum and the National Museum of Nature and Science, as well as the nucleotide sequence information registered with the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ), this new species is on the Sea of Japan side from Hokkaido to Hyogo Prefecture and the Pacific side from Aomori Prefecture to Miyagi Prefecture. It was found that it was distributed in.The scientific name was "Palaemon septemtrionalis" in consideration of the "northern" distribution from Hokkaido to the Tohoku region.
There are 87 species of prawns in the genus Shrimp in the world, 11 species in Japan and 12 species in total, exotic species Chugoxujiebi.Of these, the only freshwater species that inhabit rivers and lakes are the prawns, except for the prawns, and the Kitanosuji shrimp discovered this time is the second native freshwater species in Japan.This achievement is interesting from an evolutionary and conservation perspective, and it is said that its ecological characteristics will be elucidated in the future.
Paper information:[Zootaxa] A new freshwater shrimp species of the genus Palaemon Weber, 1795 (Decapoda: Caridea: Palaemonidae) from northeastern Japan
