Sexual system in the tanaidacean Falsapseudes bowmani (Crustacea: Malacostraca: Peracarida)

Abstract

With more than 40,000 species, Malacostraca is the most diverse crustacean class. Most malacostracans are gonochoristic, but simultaneous hermaphrodites are also known. Tanaidacea is one of two malacostracan orders that includes simultaneously hermaphroditic species; so far, simultaneous hermaphroditism has been confirmed externally and internally in only two tanaidacean species, both in the genus Apseudes (Apseudidae). Here we show, through external and internal morphological observations of fixed specimens, that the apseudid Falsapseudes bowmani is a simultaneous hermaphrodite, making Falsapseudes the second tanaidacean genus in which simultaneous hermaphroditism has been confirmed both externally and internally. In this species, the epistome (a projection on the clypeus) was thick and elongate in large specimens but was thin and spiniform in smaller specimens; the brooding of eggs or embryos was observed only in thin-epistome individuals, although a pair of ovaries was confirmed in both thick- and thin-epistome individuals. This suggests that individuals with a thick epistome may act as males while also retaining the female reproductive organs.