Cherax snowden, a new species of crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae) from the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula in Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia

Christian Lukhaup; Jörn Panteleit; Anne Schrimpf

doi:10.3897/zookeys.518.6127

Cherax snowden, a new species of crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae) from the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula in Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia

Zookeys. 2015 Aug 24:(518):1-14. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.518.6127. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Christian Lukhaup¹, Jörn Panteleit², Anne Schrimpf²

Affiliations

¹ Waldstrasse 5a, 66999 Hinterweidenthal, Germany.
² Conservation Genetics,Institute for Environmental Sciences,University Koblenz-Landau, Fortstrasse 7, 76829 Landau, Germany.

Abstract

A new species, Cherax snowden sp. n., from the Oinsok River Drainage, Sawiat District in the central part of the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia, is described, figured and compared with the closest related species, Cherax holthuisi Lukhaup & Pekny, 2006. This species is collected and exported for ornamental purposes and its commercial name in the pet trade is "orange tip" or "green orange tip". Both species may be easily distinguished morphologically or by using sequence divergence, which is substantial, for considering Cherax snowden sp. n. to be a new species.

Keywords: Cherax snowden new species; Crustacea; Decapoda; Indonesia; Irian Jaya; Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula; Oinsok River Drainage; Parastacidae; West Papua; freshwater crayfish; pet trade.