Relevant Synonyms Penaeus japonicus Monod, 1930 Misidentification Penaeus canaliculatus (Olivier, 1811) (cf. Balss, 1927)  photo: Bella Galil

SHORT DESCRIPTION Rostrum with 7-11 teeth on upper margin, single tooth on lower margin. Carapace bearing gastrofrontal, hepatic crests, spines. Post-rostral crest medially grooved, crest bordered by deep grooves reaching posterior margin of carapace. Abdominal segments 4-6 keeled. Sixth abdominal segment bearing three lateral scars. Telson with pointed tip and 3 pairs of movable distal spines. First three pairs of walking legs chelate, only basial spines present on first and second walking legs. Petasma symmetrical. Thelycum tubular. color : body pale, bearing uninterrupted brown transverse bands. Walking legs and pleopods pale yellow proximally, blue distally. Uropods distally striped with yellow and blue, setal fringe red. common size : TL 17 cm males, 27 cm females (max.). DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS Melicertus kerathurus has both coxal and basial spines on first, second walking legs; transverse interrupted dark bands on first four segments of abdomen. BIOLOGY / ECOLOGY Nocturnal. Adults buried in substrate during daytime. Juveniles mostly inshore. Reproduction: April-November. Life-span approximately 2.5 years. habitat : sandy, sandy-mud bottoms, 1-90 m, usually less than 50 m.

1st MEDITERRANEAN RECORD Egypt, 1927 [1924]. DISTRIBUTION Worldwide : Indo Pacific, East Africa to Fiji. Mediterranean : recorded first as Penaeus canaliculatus in Egypt (Balss, 1927 [1924]). Successively recorded in Syria (Gruvel, 1928); southern Turkey (Monod, 1930); Israel (Gottlieb, 1953); Cyprus (Demetropoulos and Neocleous, 1969); Lebanon (Shiber, 1976); Greece, Rhodes Isl. (Kevrekidis and Kevrekidis, 1996). Mariculture release: Italy, Adriatic (Lumare and Casolino, 1986); France (Tournier, 1972). Greece, Ionian Sea-Amvrakikos Gulf; Aegean Sea-Vistonikos Gulf (Kevrekidis et al., 1996), Marmara Sea (Zaitsev and Öztürk, 2001); Spain, Mar Menor (I. Arnol, pers. comm.). ESTABLISHMENT SUCCESS Very abundant in the Levant and southern Turkey. speculated reasons for success : unknown. MODE OF INTRODUCTION Via the Suez Canal (Balss, 1927) to the Levant; aquaculture-released or escaped in the western Mediterranean and northern Aegean Sea. IMPORTANCE TO HUMANS Commercially important for fisheries in the Levant, cultured in the Aegean Sea, central and western Mediterranean.

KEY REFERENCES Balss H., 1927. Bericht uber die Crustacea Decapoda (Natantia und Anomura). Zoological Results of the Cambridge Expedition to the Suez Canal 1924. XIV. Transactions of the Linnean society of London, 22: 221-227. Holthuis L.B., 1987a. Crevettes. In: Fischer W., L. Bauchot and M. Schneider (eds.), 1987. Fiches FAO d'identification des espèces pour les besoins de la pêche. Méditerranée et mer Noire. Zone de pêche 37. Vol. 1. Végétaux et Invertébrés, Rome, pp. 189-192. Perez-Farfante I. and B. Kensley, 1997. Penaeoid and sergestoid shrimps and prawns of the world. Keys and diagnoses for the families and genera. Mémoires du Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, 175: 1-233.   Wadie W.F. and F.A. Abdel-Razek, 1985. The effect of damming on the shrimp population in the south-eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Fisheries Research, 3(4): 323-335. FEEDBACK / COMMENTS TO AUTHORS

Last update of the species sheet: October 2008 ©ciesm 2002