Mothocya renardi
Creators: name: Ravichandran, S.
name: Vigneshwaran, P.
name: Rameshkumar, G.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Malacostraca
Isopoda
Cymothoidae
Mothocya
Mothocya renardi

description: Mothocya renardi (Bleeker, 1857)
(Fig. 3 j–l)
Livoneca Renardi Bleeker, 1857: 28–29, pl. 1 (fig. 8).
Irona Renardi. — Schiöedte & Meinert, 1884: 383–386, pl. XIV (Cym. XXXIV), figs 10–15.
Livoneca Renardi. — Gerstaecker, 1882: 261.
Irona melanosticta.— Barnard, 1914: 373–374; 1955: 6.— Kensley, 1978: 80, fig. 33a (non I. melanosticta Schiöedte & Meinert, 1884).
Irona renardi.— Nierstrasz, 1915: 104; 1931: 145.— Hale, 1926: 218–220, fig. 12; 1929: 258, fig. 255.— Holthuis, 1959: 97, pl. 11 (figs 4–9).— Monod, 1971: 173–174; 1976: 863, figs 30, 32.— Trilles, 1976: 785–786, pl. 11 (fig. 10); 1979: 266.— Beumer, Ashburner, Burbury, Jette & Latham, 1982: 32.
Irona robusta Nair, 1950: 66–70, figs 1–12; 1956: 2.— Abraham, 1966: 23–42, figs 28–54, pl. 5, 6; 1967: 10–16, figs 1–25.— Monod, 1971: 174.
Mothocya sp.— Bowman & Tareen, 1983: 25, fig. 19.
Mothocya renardi.— Bruce, 1986: 1169–1177, figs 49–52, 55.— Williams & Williams, 1986: 215. Kazmi, Schotte & Yousuf, 2002: 102, fig. 84.— Yu & Li, 2003: 230–232, fig. 6.— Jones, Miller, Grutter & Cribb, 2008: 477–491.—Aneesh, Sudha, Helna, Arshad, Anilkumar & Trilles, 2013: 1–9.— Trilles, Ravichandran & Rameshkumar, 2011: 451.— Rameshkumar, Ravichandran & Allayie, 2013b: 127–132.— Hadfield, Bruce & Smit, 2015: 150–155, fig. 3, 4, 9 (b).— Aneesh, Helna & Sudha, 2016: 1270–1277, fig. 2j–m.— Ravichandran, Sivasubramanian, Rameshkumar & Veerappan 2016b: 1386–1391, fig. 2.—Aneesh, Sudha, Helna, & Anilkumar, 2016: 583–599, figs 1–6.
Lironeca puhi.— Ravichandran, 2007: 87–93, figs 2, 3.
Not Lironeca renardi.— Miers, 1880: 465–466.
Not Irona renardii.—Lanzing & O’Connor, 1975: 355–361, fig. 1c, d [Mothocya halei].
Type and type locality. Syntype, held at Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, The Netherlands (RMNH No. 78). Bleeker (1857) gives ‘... la mer de Batavia.’ as the locality. The data on the oldest of the three labels with specimens 4611 gives ‘ Baai van Batavia, Java’. However, there is no label in Bleeker’s own hand writing. The type locality is here taken to be Jakarta Bay, Java, Indonesia.
Material examined. 5 ovig. females, (25–34 mm), Pazhaiyar, 22 September 2016 (CAS / MBRM C-186 – C-190), 3 non ovig. females (25–35), Pazhaiyar, 22 September 2016, from Strongylura leiura, coll. D. Karthick Rajan (CAS / MBRM C-191 – C-192). 1 ovig. female (30 mm), Parangipettai, 17 July 2017, from Strongylura leiura, coll. S. Ravichandran (ZSI / MBRC D1-540) all localities from the southeast coast of India.
Remark. Previously briefly described by Bleeker (1857), Mothocya renardi was most recently carefully treated and redescribed by Bruce, (1986) and Hadfield et al. (2015). The Indian material Mothocya renardi was most recently redescribed and updated the lifecycle by Aneesh et al. (2006). Mothocya renardi can be distinguished by the large size (25–34 mm in length), narrow pleon and long narrow uropods, which extend well past the posterior margin of the pleotelson.
Variation is seen among M. renardi specimens from different regions (as is known for other cymothoid species; see Aneesh et al. 2006). Those specimens from the southwestern host of India average 30 mm, those from the Indo–Malaysian and northern Pacific regions average 27 mm (Hadfield et al. 2014c, 2015), and those from Australia average 29 mm in total length (Bruce 1986). Specimens also differ in body shape, widest pereonite, shape of pleotelson and pereopod 7 propodus.
The other southern Indian Mothocya species, M. karobran, M. melanosticta and M. plagulophora, are easily distinguished from M. renardi. Mothocya renardi has longerr uropods, a wider pleon, shorter coxae, and longer pleopods than M. melanosticta. It also has larger coxae, a much narrower pleon and pleotelson, longer uropods, and larger peduncle and posteromedial lobes on the pleopods than M. karobran.
When compared with the description of the syntypes given by Bruce (1986), specimens from India are broader with a moderately twisted pleon in relation to the plane of the pereon. Furthermore, the maxilla lateral lobe has two rather than three recurved robust setae, the propodal palm on pereopod 7 does not form a shallow lobe, and the exopod is 1.4 rather than 1.6 times longer than endopod.
Ravichandran’s (2007) figure of Ichthyoxenos puhi (Bowman, 1962) (as Lironeca puhi Bowman, 1962) from the host Strongylura leiura (Bleeker, 1850) is a misidentification and refers to M. renardi based on the morphology. The large size (24–36 mm in length), narrow pleon and long narrow uropods, which extend well past the posterior margin of the pleotelson are important characteristics that define the species (Bruce 1986; Hadfield et al. 2015). Similarly, Lanzing & O’Connor’s (1975) figure of Irona renardii from the host Girella tricuspidata (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824) from estuaries and coastal waters of eastern Australia is also a misidentification and refers to Mothocya halei Bruce, 1986.
Colour. In alcohol, colour varied from pale tan to dark red; chromatophores scattered over dorsum and present on most appendages (Bruce 1986).
Size. Ovig. females 24–36 mm; non ovig. females 26–35; males 15–23 mm (Bruce 1986).
Distribution. Known from the Indian Ocean and Indo–West Pacific: Indonesia (Bleeker 1857; Nierstrasz 1915; Bruce 1986), Australia (Hale 1926; Bruce 1986), Philippines (Schiöedte & Meinert 1884; Bruce 1986), India (Nair 1950; Bruce 1986; Trilles et al. 2011; Aneesh et al. 2006), Madagascar (Trilles 1976); Kuwait (Bowman & Tareen 1983), Japan, Kenya, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea (Bruce 1986), Thailand (Williams & Williams 1986), China (Yu & Li 2003), Northern Arabian Sea (Kazmi et al. 2002) and South Africa (Hadfield et al. 2015).
Hosts. The most frequently recorded host is Strongylura leiura (Bleeker, 1850) (sometimes cited as Tylosurus leiurus or Belone ciconia). Hale (1926) recorded it from Strongylura leiura (cited as Tylosurus ferox, presumably Belone ferox, which is a junior synonym of S. leiura) and Tylosurus gavialoides (Castelnau, 1873) (cited as Tylosurus macleayana, presumably Belone macleayana, which is a junior synonym for T. gavialoides). Other host species are Strongylura anastomella (Valenciennes, 1846), S. incise (Valenciennes, 1846), S. strongylura (van Hasselt, 1823) and Tylosurus crocodilus (Péron & Lesueur, 1821) (Bruce 1986). Bruce (1986) reported M. renardi from ‘ Strongylura crocodilis (recorded as S. choram)’ (Bruce 1986: 1174) as the host from the Zambezi River estuary (SAM A2675); however, the original label records the host as Tylosurus choram (Rüppell, 1837), adding another host record for this species.
description: Published as part of Ravichandran, S., Vigneshwaran, P. & Rameshkumar, G., 2019, A taxonomic review of the fish parasitic isopod family Cymothoidae Leach, 1818 (Crustacea: Isopoda: Cymothooidea) of India, pp. 1-99 in Zootaxa 4622 (1) on pages 43-44, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4622.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3379899