''Dinochelus ausubeli'' is a small deep sea lobster discovered in 2007 in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

during the

Census of Marine Life The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, US $650 million scientific initiative, involving a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations, engaged to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. Th ...

and described in 2010 in the new genus ''Dinochelus''. Its two claws are very different in size, are elongated, and bear many long teeth on the inner surface.

Description

''Dinochelus ausubeli'' has a carapace length of around , and is in life mostly

translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions ...

white, with reddish pink colouring near the middle of the carapace, on the tail fan, on the antennae, and on the first pereiopods (including the claws). Its two claws are very different in size.

Distribution and discovery

''D. ausubeli'' is only known from its type locality, , off the coast of

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

in the

. It was found by

trawling Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different spec ...

at a depth of around in 2007, as part of the

, a major effort to document marine life in the first decade of the 21st century. It was described in 2010 by an international team of scientists.

Taxonomy

The new species was placed in a separate genus, ''Dinochelus'', whose name derives from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

roots (''dinos''), meaning "terrible" or "fearful", and (''chela''), meaning "

claw A claw is a curved, pointed appendage found at the end of a toe or finger in most amniotes (mammals, reptiles, birds). Some invertebrates such as beetles and spiders have somewhat similar fine, hooked structures at the end of the leg or tarsus ...

". The specific epithet "ausubeli" honours Jesse H. Ausubel, the sponsor of the Census of Marine Life, "in recognition of his vision and support for marine biodiversity exploration". ''Dinochelus'' belongs to a group of lobsters previously recognised as the separate family,

Thaumastochelidae The family Thaumastochelidae contains five known species of deep-sea lobsters, three in the genus ''Thaumastocheles'', and two in the genus ''Thaumastochelopsis''. The fifth species was discovered in the ten–year Census of Marine Life. These c ...

, which also includes the genera ''

Thaumastocheles The family Thaumastochelidae contains five known species of deep-sea lobsters, three in the genus ''Thaumastocheles'', and two in the genus ''Thaumastochelopsis''. The fifth species was discovered in the ten–year Census of Marine Life. These cr ...

'' and '' Thaumastochelopsis''. These genera all show very long, toothed claws with a bulbous base, with one claw much longer than the other. ''Dinochelus'' has features in common with each of those genera; on the basis of DNA sequencing using cytochrome oxidase I, ''Dinochelus'' is thought to be the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to ''Thaumostocheles'' + ''Thaumastochelopsis''. It is distinguished from either genus by the unusual, T-shaped form of the

epistome Stomotheca is the term applied to the feeding apparatus in front of the mouth of harvestmen, and sometimes the related scorpions. Usually it consists of the ''epistome'' ( labrum), two pairs of ''coxapophyses'' (endites, maxillary lobes) and often a ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1226666 True lobsters Monotypic arthropod genera