New Genera of Phreatoicidea (Crustacea: Isopoda) from Western Australia Author Wilson, George D. F. Author Keable, Stephen J. text Records of the Australian Museum 2002 2002-06-01 54 1 41 70 https://journals.australian.museum/wilson-and-keable-2002-rec-aust-mus-541-4170/ journal article 10.3853/j.0067-1975.54.2002.1359 2201-4349 5754788 Peludo n.gen. “New Genus 2”: Wilson & Johnson, 1999: 265, fig. 1. “New Genus X2”: Wilson & Keable, 2001, table 1. Type species . Peludo paraliotus n.sp. Etymology . Peludo is a Spanish word meaning “hairy”, suggested by the resemblance of this taxon to the furry donkey in Juan Ramón Jiménez’s prose poem “Platero y Yo”. The gender is interpreted to be masculine. Diagnosis . External body surfaces covered with fine cuticular hairs, forming dense “fur”, except for tuberculate dorsal midline. Head antennal notch deep, extending completely under eye; head length shorter than width in dorsal view, with several tubercles. Pleotelson strongly curled under body, pleopodal cavity facing anteriorly; posterior margin medial lobe reflexed against dorsal surface, triangular in posterior view; lateral lobes plate-like, shallower than basal width of uropod protopods; postanal ridge forming thin curved ring at edge of anal margin, lacking setae; dorsal uropod ridge elongate. Mandible palp length 0.4 mandible body length; article 1 forming thin ring, barely visible. Pereopodal dactyls proximally constricted, distally thin and sharp. Pleopod epipods without coupling hooks; exopods I–II strongly concave laterally. Uropod protopod dorsomedial plate broader than shaft, covering anus, lacking marginal setae. Remarks . Peludo n.gen. is one of the more unusual taxa in the Amphisopodidae . Its reduced mandibular palp occurs nowhere else among the Phreatoicidea . The cuticular hairs, which cover the body, are usually seen only at high magnification and on scattered parts of the body in other phreatoicideans, examples include the basal part of the antennal flagellum in Eremisopus n.gen. , and on the pleotelson (and elsewhere) in species of a new genus from the Grampians, Victoria (Wilson & Keable, in press). In Peludo , however, these hairs are macroscopic and dense. The deep antennal notch of Peludo extends well under the eye, giving it an almost pedunculate appearance (e.g., Fig. 8E ); the eye of other phreatoicideans is more clearly fused to the head. The pleotelson of Peludo is so strongly curled under the body that it cannot be fully straightened, at least in preserved specimens, whereas most other phreatoicideans are capable of fully extending the pleon (pleonites and pleotelson). Figure 8B shows a live animal with the maximum extent of pleon extension. The pleotelson and uropods appear to close off the pleopodal and anal chambers (see Fig. 9A–C ; the uropods in Fig. 9E,G,H were artificially spread to allow a ventral view of the pleotelson tip). The pleotelson distal tip of Peludo , flattened against the posterior surface of the pleotelson, superficially approximates the condition in Platypyga n.gen. , although these two taxa have decidedly different forms of this structure. The pereopod I merus of Peludo overhangs from the carpus to the propodus, appearing longer than in other taxa such as Crenisopus , Phreatoicus Chilton, 1883 and Crenoicus .