Deep-sea Fauna and Pollutants off Pacifi c Coast of Northern Japan, edited by T. Fujita, National Museum of Nature and Science Monographs, No. 39, pp. 467-481, 2009 Deep-sea Cymothoid Isopods (Crustacea: Isopoda: Cymothoidae) of Pacifi c Coast of Northern Honshu, Japan Takeo Yamauchi Toyama Institute of Health, 17̶1 Nakataikoyama, Imizu, Toyama, 939̶0363 Japan E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract: During the project “Research on Deep-sea Fauna and Pollutants off Pacifi c Coast of Northern Ja- pan”, a small collection of cymothoid isopods was obtained at depths ranging from 150 to 908 m. Four species of cymothoid isopods including a new species are reported. Mothocya komatsui sp. nov. is distinguished from its congeners by the elongate body shape and the heavily twisting of the body. Three species, Ceratothoa oxyrrhynchaena Koelbel, 1878, Elthusa sacciger (Richardson, 1909), and Pleopodias diaphus Avdeev, 1975 were fully redescribed. Ceratothoa oxyrrhynchaena and E. sacciger were fi rstly collected from blackthroat seaperchs Doederleinia berycoides (Hilgendorf) and Kaup’s arrowtooth eels Synaphobranchus kaupii John- son, respectively. Key words: Ceratothoa oxyrrhynchaena, Elthusa sacciger, Mothocya, new host record, new species, Pleo- podias diaphus, redescription. Introduction Cymothoid isopods are ectoparasites of marine, fresh, and brackish water fi sh. In Japan, about 45 species of cymothoid isopods are known (Saito et al., 2000), but deep-sea species have not been well studied. This paper deals with a collection of cymothoid isopods from the project “Research on Deep-sea Fauna and Pollutants off Pacifi c Coast of Northern Japan” conducted by the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo.