''Automate branchialis'' is a species of pistol shrimp from the family Alpheidae which was thought to be a

Lessepsian migrant The Lessepsian migration (also called Erythrean invasion) is the migration of marine species across the Suez Canal, usually from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and more rarely in the opposite direction. When the canal was completed in 18 ...

, i.e. a species which had colonised the Mediterranean from the Red Sea via the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

. This was because before its description in 1958 all the species of the genus '' Automate'' were found in the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

region. ''A. branchialis'' has not been recorded in the Indo-Pacific region and has been found to be widespread in the Mediterranean so it is now considered to be a Mediterranean endemic.

Discovery and distribution

''Automate branchialis'' was originally described from specimens collected by Holthuis & Gottlieb off the coast of Israel in the 1950s. At the time the pistol shrimps of the genus ''Automate'' were only known from the Indian and Pacific Oceans and although Holthuis & Gottlieb described their specimens as the new species ''Automate branchialis'' it was assumed that it had invaded the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea by Lessepsian migration. ''A. branchialis'' was subsequently collected from a number of locations in the Mediterranean including Izmir Bay in Turkey, in the

Greek Islands Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. The largest Greek island by a ...

, Cyprus, from Manfredonia Bay in Italy, Malta, off

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

, the

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

and off Spain. The widespread distribution of ''A. branchialis'' in the Mediterranean and the lack of any records in the

region have led researchers to conclude that it is a previously overlooked endemic Mediterranean species. It was probably overlooked because of its small size and preferred deep water habitat; it is demersal with a depth range of 18–73 m.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q13431966 Alpheidae Fauna of the Mediterranean Sea Crustaceans described in 1958 Taxa named by Lipke Holthuis