THE OCCURRENCE OF MANTIS SHRIMP RISSOIDES DESMARESTI OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST

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MANTIS SHRIMPS OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST

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THE OCCURRENCE OF MANTIS SHRIMP RISSOIDES DESMARESTI (CRUSTACEA: STOMATOPODA) OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST J. R. ELLIS, K. WARR, K. COOPER AND I. J. DE BOOIS Little is known about the distribution of mantis shrimps (Order Stomatopoda) in European seas, as these burrowing crustaceans are poorly sampled in trawl surveys. Two species are known to occur in British seas, Rissoides desmaresti (Risso, 1816) (formerly Meiosquilla desmaresti; see Manning & Lewinsohn (1982)) and Platysquilla eusebia (Risso, 1816) (Mauchline, 1984), though more species occur further south (Manning, 1977). Rissoides desmaresti (Fig. 1) is most often reported from the Mediterranean, where it is common in the western basins (Manning, 1977) and reported occasionally in eastern basins, such as the Aegean Sea (e.g. Kocataú, 1981). Its distribution extends northwards to the southern and western coasts of the British Isles, and it has been recorded regularly from the English Channel (Bell, 1853; Clark, 1985; Herbert, 2001), and Ramsay and Holt (2001) recently recorded a population in Tremadog Bay (North Wales). Within the North Sea (Fig. 2), single specimens of adult R. desmaresti have been recorded near the Kentish Knock lightship (51º39’N, 1º41’E) in April 1901 (Bell, 1902) and further north (53º42’N, 3º52’E) in January 1963 (van der Baan & Holthuis, 1966). The latter study also made reference to “not quite adult specimens” being recorded at the Brown Bank (either 52º44’N, 3º39’E or 52º41’N, 3º40’E) in September 1904. Even though there have been very few reports of adult stomatopods in the North Sea, their larval stages are more regularly reported (van der Baan & Holthuis, 1966, 1969; Verwey, 1966). Based on the duration of the larval stages and currents in the southern North Sea, Verwey (1966) suggested that it was likely that these larvae had originated not only from the English Channel, but also from the southern North Sea itself. Despite the indication that there is

Figure 1. Mantis shrimp Rissoides desmaresti. Scale in centimetres.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 42 (2006)


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