A new species of shrimp of the genus Urocaridella Borradaile, 1915 (Decapoda: Caridea: Palaemonidae) from Papua New Guinea

Urocaridella degravei n. sp. is described from Papua New Guinea. The new species can be distinguished from all other congeners by the number of teeth and length of the rostrum, the length of the stylocerite relative to the basal segment of the antennular peduncle, the length of the carpus in the first and second pereiopods, and the length of the propodus relative to the dactylus in the third to fifth pereiopods. The new species has a carapace and abdomen bearing bright red and yellow spots and a yellow rostrum. The abdomen exhibits a ventral yellow line of chromatophores that bifurcates at the end of the sixth abdominal somite and runs to the tip of the exopods in the uropods. Total evidence maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference phylogenetic analyses using mitochondrial (16S rRNA) and nuclear (Histone 3 and 18S rRNA) DNA gene fragments suggests that the new species is sister to a clade comprising U. antonbruunii Bruce, 1967, U. pulchella Yokes & Galil, 2006 and U. cyrtorhyncha Fujino & Miyake, 1969. Pairwise genetic distances estimated using the 16S rRNA DNA gene fragment indicated 10-11% sequence divergence with the closest congeneric species.