DNA Barcoding and Molecular Phylogeny Confirm the Presence of the Cryptic Penaeus japonicus Form II (P. pulchricaudatus) in the Egyptian Demersal Fisheries of the Gulf of Suez and the Bitter Lakes.

The Kuruma prawn Penaeus japonicus is one of the world's most well-known prawn species. It contributes a major benefit for the Egyptian fisheries-based economy. In the previous two decades of the 21^st century, P. japonicus has been proven to be a species complex, encompassing mainly two forms, termed P. japonicus (Form I) and P. pulchricaudatus (Form II). In order to accurately identify the exact form of P. japonicus that exists in the Gulf of Suez and the Bitter Lakes, samples were obtained by trawling from the Gulf of Suez and artisanal fishing from the Bitter Lakes. They were subjected to the mitochondrial 16S rDNA-based DNA barcoding. The obtained sequences were analyzed for identifying the exact form using GenBank database comparisons, phylogenetic analyses, and genetic pairwise distances-based comparisons. The results exhibited that all the collected samples belonged to two different haplotypes, both belonging to the Form II of Kuruma prawn, i.e. P. pulchricaudatus. Genetic pairwise distances and phylogenetic analyses also agreed with the pertinence of all collected Gulf of Suez and Bitter Lakes Kuruma shrimp samples to P. pulchricaudatus. Therefore, the results of the current study strongly recommend applying conservation and management strategies for this species in the Gulf of Suez and Bitter as the Form II, i.e. P. pulchricaudatus, which was proven to be genomically and transcriptomically different from the proper P. japonicus, i.e. Form I.