(Bate, 1856)
Description
Body slender, covered with short hairs. Carapace short, subtruncate; front in female with a few stiff setae on either side on the rounded upper front corner, smoothly truncate in front down to the denticulate, slightly prominent upper edge of a slight excavation, the middle of which is occupied by a prominence with two or three small downward pointing teeth, while its lower edge is formed by an upward pointing tooth followed by some serrations on the lower edge; in the male the excavation is replaced by a smooth convexity with only a few teeth on the lower front edge.
Antenna 1 bent (geniculate) between the second and third segments. Distal segment of antenna 2 in female ill-defined. All the pereion segments are visible from above. Pleopods without an external process on the inner ramus, two pairs, rarely one or none, in male. Exopodites present on the third maxillipeds and on the first four pairs of pereiopods, rarely the first two pairs, in the male; in the female on the first three pairs, rarely the first two pairs. The mandibles are broadened at the base. There are no long setae on the hind border of pleonite 5. Peduncle of the uropods a little longer than the exopod, which is a little longer in the female or a little shorter in the adult male than the first segment of the endopod. The distal segment, including its terminal spine, is more than half as long as the proximal segment of the endopod in the female, less than half in the male.
Habitat
Found on muddy sand substrates.
Size
Length up to 5 mm.
Depth range
Usually <50 m, but recorded from depths down to 550 m.
Distribution in the North Sea
Northern and southern North Sea, Skagerrak.
World distribution
Boreal-Mediterranean species, found on both sides of the N Atlantic and in the Mediterranean; does not extend into the Arctic.
[After Jones, 1976]