(G.O. Sars, 1864)
Description
— Generic features. General form slender and delicate. Eyes well developed, short, reniform and flattened dorso-ventrally, pigment brilliant red in living specimens. Antennal scale with outer margin entire or coarsely serrate, without setae, terminating in a strong spine beyond, no distal suture. Last four pairs of pleopods of the male well developed and biramous, first pair with endopod reduced to a single segment. Uropod, exopod and endopod undivided, setose alle round; no spines on outr margin of exopod; inner margin of endopod may be minutely serrated. Telson very short, entire, trapeziform, lateral margins naked; apex truncate, armed with 2 pairs of strong spines; no median plumose setae.
— Species. General form somewhat robust; the cephalothorax is much broader than the abdomen. Carapace with anterior end smoothly rounded without definite rostrum; cervical groove deeply marked, last abdominal somite shorter in proportion than in the other species, shorter than the sum of the two preceding somites.
Antennal scale small, linear, about four and a half times as long as broad, reaching only just beyond the distal end of the antennular peduncle; outer margin entire, ending in a tooth beyond which the apex of the scale extends somewhat. The outer distal corner of the sympod is thickened giving the appearance of being armed with a spine.
Eyes small, about as broad as long, not so flattened dorso-ventrally as in the other Erythrops; set considerably apart; stalks short and broad; cornea in dorsal view occupying rather less than half the whole organ; pigment a particularly deep brilliant red and in the living animal showing a chalk-white line between the cornea and the stalk. This feature is very noticeable in life and enhances the beautiful colour of the eye.
Thoracic limbs very long and slender and the endopod of the eighth, when fully stretched backward, reaches the posterior margin of the telson; propodus longer than the carpus, the proximal of its three subsegments nearly twice as long as the other two together.
Telson broader at the base than long, lateral margins only very slightly concave, terminal margin straight, spines large, subequal in the female, outer pair considerably shorter than the inner in the male.
Uropods with endopod shorter than exopod in the male, very nearly of same length in the female (Sars, 1870); greater part of inner margin of endopod minutely serrulated.
Colour
Pale with orange flecks; the body is often practically colourless with the stomach and gut showing through as a dark mass.
Size
Adult up to 9 mm long.
Depth range
Hyperbenthic, 700-850 m.
Remarks
The species may readily be distinguished by the small eyes; the small antennal scale which reaches only to the distal end of the antennular peduncle; the thickening of the antero-lateral angle of the sympod, the long thoracic legs, the eighth of which extends to the posterior end of the telson, and the robust form of the body.
Distribution in the North Sea
Maybe in the northern North Sea; E. microps is reported from the Skagerrak and off W Norway; deep water species.
World distribution
North Atlantic: 51-69°N; shelf, slope.
[After Tattersall and Tattersall, 1951]