There has been some debate over the taxonomy of the Pacific and Atlantic seabob shrimps (genus Xiphopenaeus spp.). In the late 90s, the genus was considered to comprise a single species (i.e. monotypic; species name accepted as Xiphopenaeus kroyeri), based on the fact of no clear morphological differences between Atlantic and Pacific seabob specimens (Pérez and Kensley 1997). A recent study on the population structuring of seabob species has indicated, however, the existence of three different species based on genetic evidence. Xiphopenaeus kroyeri (Atlantic seabob) is only distributed in the Atlantic and X. riveti only occurs in the Pacific. Map denotes the distribution of the Pacific seabob (Gusmão et al. 2006).