Cyclopids (Crustacea, Copepoda) from West Indian groundwater habitats

Amsterdam expeditions to the West Indian Islands, report 45

Giuseppe L. Pesce ¹
Bijdragen tot Dierkunde 55 (2): 295-323 (1985)

A collection of groundwater cyclopid copepods from the West Indian islands have been studied. Twenty species or subspecies are identified, and taxonomy and zoogeographic remarks on some rare or poorly known taxa are made. Seven new taxa, viz. Neocyclops stocki n.sp., Metacyclops botosaneanui n.sp., Metacyclops dianae n.sp., Apocyclops stocki n.sp., Mesocyclops intermedius n.sp., Mesocyclops aequatorialis americanus n. ssp., and Thermocyclops tenuis longifurcatus n. ssp. are described.
In general, the cyclopid fauna of the West Indian islands is much more closely related to the South and Central American fauna than to the fauna of North America. On the other hand, some species in the present collection, such as Halicyclops antiguaensis Herbst, Neocyclops stocki n.sp., Metacyclops botosaneanui n.sp., Metacyclops dianae n. sp., Apocyclops stocki n.sp, Mesocyclops intermedius n.sp. and Microcyclops dubitabilis Kiefer, are up to now endemic to the Caribbean area. Other species, such as Macrocyclops albidus (Jurine), Eucyclops serrulatus (Fischer) and Microcyclops varicans (G.O.Sars) are cosmopolitan.
According to data from the present study, the most common and widely distributed species in the ground waters of the West Indian Islands seem to be Macrocyclops albidus, Metacyclops panamensis (Marsh), Mesocyclops aspericornis (Jurine) and Thermocyclops decipiens (Kiefer).

1. Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, University of L'Aquila, Via Vetoio I-67100 L'Aquila, Italy
e-mail: pesce@aquila.infn.it

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