Caridean shrimps represent the least known group among the decapod Crustacea along the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf. Nobili (1905a, b) was the first who contributed to the Persian Gulf Caridea by describing four new species. He added 14 species by re-examining the collection made by J. Bonnier and Ch. Perez in the Gulf in 1901. Banner & Banner (1981) examined material of the Danish Expedition to Iran together with two more species from Iranian waters of the Gulf. They identified 15 species including Alpheus bisincisus (De Haan, 1849), A. edwardsii (Audouin, 1826), A. euphrosyne (De Man, 1897), A. lobidens (De Haan, 1849), A. lottini (Guérin-Méneville, 1829), A. rapax (Fabricius, 1798), A. parvirostris (Dana, 1859), Arete indicus (Coutière, 1903), Synalpheus coutierei (Banner, 1853), S. neomeris (De Man, 1897), S. paraneomeris (Coutière, 1905), S. Paul’soni (Nobili, 1906), S. quinquedens (Tattersall, 1921), S. streptodactylus (Coutière, 1905), and S. triunguiculatus (Paul’son, 1875). Of these, 9 were new records for the Gulf. Unfortunately, they did not mention the localities of the examined species, but since the expedition was mainly conducted along the Iranian waters the recorded species are regarded as belonging to the Iranian fauna. Because the expedition undertook ship-based sampling, the species recorded by Banner & Banner (1981) are not listed in the present catalogue. De Grave (2007) listed eight new records of caridean shrimps from Qatar and raised the known number of Gulf carideans to 46. Sheibani (2008), in her unpublished thesis recorded 9 additional species from the Gulf. Kemponia elegans (Paul’son, 1875) [now Cuapetes elegans (Paul’son, 1875)], Palaemon pacificus (Stimpson, 1860), Processa cf. barnardi Hayashi, 1975, Salmoneus cf. brevirostris (Edmondson, 1930), Salmoneus cf. gracilipes Miya, 1972, Athanas dimorphus Ortmann, 1894, Athanas indicus (Coutière, 1903), Alpheus lobidens De Haan, 1850, and Alpheus cf. labis Banner & Banner, 1982. Of these, three species were new Gulf records.

De Grave & Ashelby (2011) added three species to the caridean fauna and provided an updated checklist of 59 species from the Gulf excluding the three new records of Sheibani (2008). Twenty-seven shallow water carideans are recorded here from the Iranian coast, of which 24 were collected during the study. Eleven species are new records from the Gulf, raising the number of carideans in the area to 73.