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Pasiphaea

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Pasiphaea
Pasiphaea gelasinus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Caridea
Family: Pasiphaeidae
Genus: Pasiphaea
Savigny, 1816
Synonyms
  • Phye Wood-Mason, 1892

Pasiphaea is a genus of caridean (true) shrimp in the family Pasiphaeidae found from the Arctic to the Antarctic and living in the mesopelagic to bathypelagic zones.[1][2] It contains the economically significant Japanese glass shrimp (P. japonica), which has been fished for over a century and a half.[3]

Taxonomy

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The genus Pasiphaea was created in 1816 by M. J. C. Savigny to accommodate the species Alphaeus sivado,[4] described the same year by Antoine Risso from a specimen from Nice.[5] Numerous species were described in the genus in the 19th and 20th centuries, and by the end of the latter century, the taxonomic status of several species was quite muddled. Taxonomic work on the genus has been made difficult by numerous synonymies, names based on inadequate and brief original descriptions, and species separated by very minor morphological differences. In the 1990s, Ken-Ichi Hayashi revised several groups of species within the genus, and, notably, redefined the genus as a whole by considering the genus Phye as a synonym. Hayashi divided Pasiphaea into three informal groups, as well as a fourth category of over a dozen species of more miscellaneous physical characteristics. However, a 2026 study found that the morphology-based groups were quite at odds with molecular evidence collected, with the groups being scattered near-randomly across the genetic clades. New species were also added to the genus by Hayashi in the 1990s and 2000s and by authors working in the West Pacific region in 2012 and 2026. In particular, the 2026 paper – which revised the taxonomy of Pasiphaea in the southwest tropical Pacific Ocean as well – found that "even moderately abundant new collections can yield a significant number of undescribed Pasiphaea species", although some of those new species are represented by only a single specimen. The paper also found species in the New Caldeonia area that are very genetically distinct but are "nearly indistinguishable" based on morphological characteristics. The authors suggested that this may be the result of rapid speciation in the area caused by a rugged terrain divided by numerous seamounts and rises.[1]

Species

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The description of eight new species of Pasiphaea from the tropical Pacific in 2026 brought the total number of species up to The World Register of Marine Species lists the following taxa as of 2026:[2]

References

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  1. 1 2 Tikhomirov, Anton M.; Kulagin, Dmitrii N.; Lunina, Anastasiia A.; Vourey, Elodie; Vereshchaka, Alexander L. (2025-09-19). "Taxonomic Revision of Pasiphaea (Pasiphaeidae: Crustacea) of the Southwest Tropical Pacific with a Description of Eight New Species". Diversity. 17 (9): 656. doi:10.3390/d17090656. ISSN 1424-2818.
  2. 1 2 "WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Pasiphaea Savigny, 1816". www.marinespecies.org. Retrieved 2026-07-10. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
  3. ↑ Omori, Makoto (22 December 1976). "The Glass Shrimp, Pasiphaea japonica sp. nov. (Caridea, Pasiphaeidae), a Sibling Species of Pasiphaea sivado, with Notes on its Biology and Fishery in Toyama Bay, Japan" (PDF). Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Ser. A (Zoo.). 2 (4): 249–266.
  4. ↑ Savigny, Jules-César (1816). Mémoires sur les animaux sans vertèbres. Paris: G. Dufour.
  5. ↑ Risso, A. (1816). Histoire naturelle des crustacés des environs de Nice. Paris: A la Librairie grecquelatine-allemande.
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