A new genus and new species of pseudozioid crab of the family Pilumnoididae is described from a fouling community on a semisubmersible oil platform in Singapore that had been operating in the Timor Sea and South China Sea. Setozius incertus gen. et sp. nov. superficially resembles species of Pilumnus (Pilumnidae, Pilumnoidea) but has male first and second gonopod structures characteristic of th...

A survey of the parasites of Indo-West Pacific Haemulidae revealed the presence of three new cryptogonimid (Digenea: Cryptogonimidae) species warranting two new genera, Beluesca littlewoodi n. gen., n. sp. and B. longicolla n. sp. from the intestine and pyloric caeca of Plectorhinchus gibbosus and Chelediadema marjoriae n. gen., n. sp. from the intestine and pyloric caeca of Diagramma labiosum,...

Phylogenetic and paleontological analyses are combined to reveal patterns of species origination and divergence and to define the significance of potential and actual barriers to dispersal in Conus, a species-rich genus of predatory gastropods distributed throughout the world's tropical oceans. Species-level phylogenetic hypotheses are based on nucleotide sequences from the nuclear calmodulin a...

An overview is presented of the metazoan alien biota recorded from the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Of the 296 alien species, 284 have been introduced from the Red Sea/Indo West-Pacific through the Suez Canal. A brief history of the research on introduced species along the Israeli coast is presented along with the list of species, and their ecological and economic impacts are discussed.

Pseudambasia appears to be an Indo-West Pacific endemic, comprising mostly tropical and temperate species but also one from the New Zealand subantarctic. In this paper the genus Pseudambasia Stephensen is diagnosed against all other genera of the Lysianassinae. Six new species of Pseudambasia (P. dartnalli sp. nov.; P. lochi sp. nov.; P. ponderi sp. nov.; P. poorei sp. nov.; P. sheardi sp. nov....

Over the past three decades, coral reefs worldwide have experienced significant losses in living coral cover and changes in the structure and function of these communities. Infectious diseases have been recognized as a prominent cause of mortality in scleractinian corals in the western Atlantic since the 1980’s, but until recently there were few reports of coral disease from the Indo-Pacific re...

New records are presented for the caridean shrimp family Processidae in Indo-West and East Pacific waters, based mainly on recently collected material. These records highlight that many processid species may be relatively widespread, although the distribution of some species remains imperfectly known. The colour pattern of several species is here documented for the first time, showing its poten...

A new species of the spongicolid genus Microprosthema Stimpson, 1860 is described based on two specimens collected from Shi Island, Xisha Islands, South China Sea. The type specimens were collected within a sponge, representing an unusual habitat for the genus. M. personatum sp. nov. is easily distinguished from its closest congeners, M. takedai and M. fujitai, by its convex supraocular eaves a...

Stylasterid corals comprise about 250 species, making them the second largest group of calcified cnidarians, only the Scleractinia having more species (i.e. 1500; Cairns, 1999; Cairns et al., 1999). They are distributed worldwide in both deep and shallow-water marine environments, but most species occur in water depths of 200-500m (Cairns, 1984, 1992). Among the tropical shallow-water species, ...

The current phylogenetic hypothesis for the evolution and biogeography of fiddler crabs relies on the assumption that complex behavioral traits are assumed to also be evolutionary derived. Indo-west Pacific fiddler crabs have simpler reproductive social behavior and are more marine and were thought to be ancestral to the more behaviorally complex and more terrestrial American species. It was al...