The first Indo-West Pacific rock shrimp ( Crustacea , Decapoda , Sicyoniidae ) in the Mediterranean Sea

Sicyonia lancifer (Olivier, 1811), a widely distributed Indo-West Pacific rock shrimp, was recently collected off the Mediterranean coasts of Turkey and Israel. This is the first record of the species in the Mediterranean Sea. The species is illustrated, and differentiated from its native Mediterranean congener, S. carinata (Brünnich, 1768).

Of the 83 alien decapod crustaceans known from the Mediterranean Sea (Galil et al. 2015b), 15 are penaeoids.Sicyonia lancifer (Olivier, 1811) is the 16 th non-native penaeoid species and is the first sicyoniid to have entered the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.

Materials and methods
Specimens of Sicyonia lancifer were collected off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey during surveys supported by the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Istanbul University.These surveys used a commercial bottom trawler (25 m length) and the net had a 44-mm mesh in the cod end.An additional specimen of S. lancifer was collected off the Mediterranean coast of Israel during a survey of the soft bottom epifauna conducted within the framework of the national monitoring program.This survey used a similarsized commercial bottom trawler and the net had a 20-mm mesh in the cod end.The specimens are deposited in the Gökçeada Marine Research Department, Istanbul University, Turkey (GMRD), and Steinhardt National Collections of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Israel (TAU).
Geographic and bathymetric ranges.-In the Indo-West Pacific S. lancifer is known from the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Seychelles and Madagascar to Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji and Japan; from the intertidal to 250-350 m depths (Crosnier 2003).
Remarks.-Sicyonia lancifer is readily distinguished from its Eastern Atlantic-Mediterranean congener S. carinata in possessing five unequal teeth on the postrostral carina (vs.three in S. carinata); pleon with distinctly grooved dorsal carinae (vs.rounded carinae in S. carinata); and deeply sculpted pleura with spinose posterior margins (vs.pleura obscurely sculpted with smooth posterior margins in S. carinata).
Earlier Erythraean alien colonizers were mostly confined to the shallow shelf.In recent years, however, non-native species inhabiting deeper waters have been recorded: the spiny blaasop Tylerius spinosissimus (Regan, 1908) was collected at 90 m depth (Corsini et al. 2005) and at 120-140 m (Golani et al. 2011); the eel goby Trypauchen vagina (Bloch and Schneider, 1801) at 90 m (Salameh et al. 2010); the nakedband gaper Champsodon nudivittis (Ogilby, 1895) at 100 m (Goren et al. 2011) and 150 m (Kalogirou and Corsini-Foka 2012); and Randall's threadfin bream Nemipterus randalli Russel, 1986 reaches depths of 150 m (Stern et al. 2014).The discovery of these species becoming established in deep waters suggests that the deepening of the Suez Canal facilitates the passage of deeperliving species.The Mediterranean records of S. lancifer, at depths ranging from 60 to 110 m, marks another thermophilic alien added to the deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean Sea.
Repeatedly deepened and widened, the Suez Canal currently is 24 m deep, and the Suez Canal Authority is already evaluating the feasibility of further increase in depth (http://www.suezcanal.gov.eg,viewed October 5, 2015).The implications of a deeper canal require careful evaluation.Does increasing the supply of deeper living propagules into the Mediterranean account for the observed long term changes in the Erythraean (Lessepsian) invasions?The Suez Canal is the primary corridor for marine invasions into the Mediterranean and accounts for 2/3 of the alien species recorded in the sea.Enlargement of the Canal has resulted in increased numbers of Red Sea aliens with a range of injurious effects on the biological diversity, and ecosystem structure and functioning of the Mediterranean Sea (Galil et al. 2015a).