Remipedia is a recently described new class, including the most primitive crustaceans , at present embracing eleven species belonging to six genera and two families. They are free-swimming, troglobitic crustaceans, typically living in low-oxygen, brackish waters in marine caves; particularly they are widely distributed in anchialine habitats linked to the ancient Tethys Sea (West Indies, Bahamas, Mexico, Cuba, Canary Islands, Cape Range Peninsula, Western Australia).


SPELEONECTIDAE Yager, 1981


  • Speleonectes lucayensis Yager, 1981 [Bahamas]
  • Speleonectes benjamini Yager, 1987 [Bahamas]
  • Speleonectes ondinae (Garcia-Valdecasas, 1985) [Canary Islands]
  • Speleonectes tulumensis Yager, 1987 [Mexico]
  • Speleonectes tanumekes Koenemann, Iliffe & van der Ham, 2003 [Bahamas]
  • Speleonectes parabenjamini Koenemann, Iliffe & van der Ham, 2003 [Bahamas]
  • Speleonectes minnsi Koenemann, Iliffe & van der Ham, 2003 [Bahamas]
  • Speleonectes gironensis Yager, 1994 [Cuba]

  • Lasionectes entrichoma Yager & Schram, 1986 [West Indies]
  • Lasionectes exleyi Yager & Humphreys, 1996 [Western Australia]

  • Cryptocorynetes haptodiscus Yager, 1987 [Bahamas]



    GODZILLIIDAE Schram, Yager & Emerson, 1986


  • Godzillius robustus Schram, Yager & Emerson, 1986 [West Indies, Bahamas]

  • Godzilliognomus frondosus Yager, 1989 [Bahamas]

  • Pleomothra apletocheles Yager, 1989 [Bahamas]



    Speleonectes gironensis (Cuba)
    © Abel Perez Gonzales



    RELEVANT LITERATURE


    Yager, Jill. 1981. Remipedia, a new class of crustacea from a marine cave in the Bahamas.J. Crust. Biol., 1 (3): 328-333.

    Yager, J.. 1989. Pleomothra apletocheles and Godzilliognomus frondosus, two new genera and species of remipede crustaceans (Godzilliidae) from anchialine caves of the Bahamas. Bulletin of Marine Science, 44(3):1195-1206.

    Yager, J. 1991. The remipedia (Crustacea): rewcent investigations of their biology and phylogeny. Verh. Dtsch. Zool. Ges., 84: 261-269.

    Yager, J. 1991. The biology of the crustacean class Remipedia, with emphasis on internal anatomy. Proc. of the National Speleological Society Annual Meeting, July 1991; in: NSS Bull. Vol.53 Nr.2 (publ. 1992):113.

    Yager J. & W. F. Humphreys. 1996. Lasionectes exleyi, sp. nov., the First Remipede Crustacean Recorded from Australia and the Indian Ocean, with a Key to the World Species. Invertebrate Taxonomy, 10: 171-187



    LINKS


  • Anchialine Fauna of the Bahamas by T.E. Iliffe

  • www.utexas.edu/depts/tnhc/www/biospeleology



    Image on the left top : Speleonectes tulumensis (Mexico)
    © Dennis Williams


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