First Record of Platorchestia monodi (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Talitridae) from the Pacific Region

Abstract

Platorchestia monodi (Mateus et al., 1986), the beach hopper, commonly lives in sea shores and was previously reported only from the Atlantic regions, such as Mid-Atlantic islands, Brazilian coast, and Israel. We present the first record of this species in the Pacific region. The present species can be clearly distinguished from related species by the shapes of gnathopods 1-2 and development of sexual dimorphism in antenna 2 and pere- opod 7. Descriptions of the diagnostic characteristics of the species are provided on the text. In addition, this paper also provided the partial sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene of the species for its molecular characteristics.