Caprella acutifrons f. Andreae Mayer, 1890: 51, 55–56, pl. 2, fig. 38, pl. 4, figs 56, 70, 71. Chevreux and Fage, 1925: 452, fig. 430a.
Caprella andreae McCain, 1968: 19–22, figs 8, 9. McCain and Steinberg, 1970; Cavedini, 1982; Krapp-Schickel, 1993: 777–778, fig. 330. Aoki and Kikuchi, 1995: 54–58, figs 1, 2. Ortiz et al., 2002, fig. 18. Foster, Thomas, et al., 2004: 162, 171, fig. 9.
Offshore New Jersey, Atlantic coast of USA (38°10′ N, 64°20′ W).
Northeastern Atlantic; Mediterranean; Western Atlantic; Hawaii; Japan (McCain 1968; Krapp-Schickel 1993; Minchin and Colmes 1993; Spivak and Bass 1999).
CUB: La Havana (McCain 1968). USA: Key West (McCain 1968); Padre Island (Shirley 1974).
Caprella andreae frequently occurs on floating objects (e.g. buoys, driftwoods) and on the carapace of the sea turtles Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas (Shirley 1974; Caine 1986; Aoki and Kikuchi 1995; Pfaller et al. 2008; Sezgin et al. 2009; Cabezas, Navarro-Barranco, et al. 2013), where it seems to be consumed incidentally by turtles (Frick et al. 2009). The depth range reported is 0–2 m (LeCroy et al. 2009).
Caprella andreae is similar to Caprella penantis Leach, 1814, but readily distinguished from the latter by the inflated peduncle of antenna 1 in males and the palm of pereopods 5–7 convex with medial grasping spines. Recently, Cabezas et al. (2010) have clearly separated C. andreae from the populations of C. penantis using molecular evidence, supporting the validity of these two species, which, along with Caprella dilatata Krøyer, 1843 were formerly considered as one under the ‘acutifrons’ complex. Although the review of Foster, Thomas, et al. (2004) suggests the presence of this species in the northern region of the Gulf of Mexico, those authors along with LeCroy et al. (2009) overlooked the Texas coast record of Shirley (1974) reporting C. andreae found on the carapace of the loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta. Thus, C. andreae has not been recorded in the Gulf of Mexico during the last 39 years.