Paranarthrura Hansen 1913

Genus Paranarthrura Hansen, 1913

Generic remarks. This genus was erected by Hansen (1913) to accommodate his new species P. insignis, P. subtilis, and P. c l a v i p e s from the Danish Ingolf expedition. However, Hansen only described P. insignis in detail and Lang (1971a:354) pointed out that P. subtilis differs from the generic diagnosis in having smoothly rounded setose apical processes on the labium, instead of the conspicuous pointed triangular lobes of the diagnosis. Lang did not pursue the issue about P. subtilis further, but for some reason, he did changed the diagnosis of Paranarthrura to specify a ‘flat’ labium; a character in direct violation of the diagnosis of the type species P. insignis. Lang (1971a:368) then proceeded to redescribe and illustrate P. i n s i g n i s with pointed, not flat, triangular labium lobes. Also Bird & Holdich (1989) commented on the heterogeneous nature of this genus – and it may prove to be polyphyletic.

Paranarthrura is a cosmopolitan genus to be found in any deep-water sampling around the world. The most recent key to the genus is given by Larsen (2005).