A new snapping shrimp (Crustacea Decapoda, Alpheidae, Alpheus) from the estuarine mudflats of Kuwait

A new snapping shrimp, Alpheus lutosus spec. nov., is described from the intertidal mudflats of Bubiyan Island, northern Kuwait, south of the vast Shatt-Al-Arab delta. The new species appears to be closely related to Alpheus hoplocheles Coutière, 1897 from similar estuarine habitats in China and Japan, differing mainly in the absence of a sharp distolateral tooth on the palm of the major chela, the less marked rostral carina, and the number of spines on the propodus of the third pereiopod. Both A. lutosus spec. nov. and A. hoplocheles are unique within the A. edwardsii species group in having a strong sharp distomesial tooth on the palm of the otherwise typical edwardsii-type major chela. At the type locality, A. lutosus spec. nov. is often associated with the goby Acentrogobius dayi Koumans, 1944.