Revision of Leucothoe (Amphipoda, Crustacea) from the Southern Ocean: a cosmopolitanism concept is vanishing

Abstract

Among the 125 currently recognized species of the panoceanic genus Leucothoe, L. antarctica was described in 1888 from the Antarctic seas, but was soon synonymized with the so-called cosmopolitan Leucothoe spinicarpa Abildgaard, which was cited from the Southern Ocean about 70 times since this first record. After erecting a new Antarctic species again only in 1983, “morphological variants” were observed and discussed. In this paper, we revalidate the first defined Antarctic species (Leucothoe antarctica), redescribe the second one (L. orkneyi), describe 5 new Southern Ocean species (L. campbelli sp. nov., L. longimembris sp. nov., L. macquariae sp. nov., L. merletta sp. nov. and L. weddellensis sp. nov.) and provide a key to all Antarctic and sub-Antarctic species.