A new Stygonitocrella Petkovski (Copepoda: Harpacticoida) from a cave in Northern Mexico with comments on the taxonomy of the genus Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The cave-dwelling harpacticoid copepod fauna of Mexico is still yet to be known. There are only a few records related to karstic caves, but most refer to epigean forms. The analysis of samples collected in a cave system in Northern Mexico yielded two female specimens of an unknown harpacticoid copepod species which is described herein. It was assigned to the genus Stygonitocrella Petkovski, 1976 mainly because of the presence of a single endopodal segment on legs 1-4; the new species, S. mexicana n. sp. differs from its congeners by a combination of characters related to the segmentation and armature of the swimming legs 1-4, the fifth leg of the female, and the strcture of the antennae. Based on the current limits of Stygonitocrella, two new subgenera are proposed to recognize different morphological patterns based on the presence or absence of an inner baseoendopodal lobe in the female fifth leg, a character not evaluated before. This lobe is absent in the new species and in other five species now contained in the subgenus Eustygonitocrella. A lobe is present in the new subgenus Fiersiella, also with six species. This is the second record of Stygonitocrella in North America, after S. (Fiersiella) sequoyahi Reid, Hunt & Stanley, 2003; it is the only North American cave-dwelling species of the genus. It is suggested that the influence of marine transgressions in Northern Mexico was related to the origin of the new species as part of a group of troglobitic forms originated from marine interstitial ancestors that colonized the freshwater caves. A key for the identification of all the known species of Stygonitocrellais also provided. Springer 2005.

published proceedings

  • HYDROBIOLOGIA

author list (cited authors)

  • Surez-Morales, E., & Iliffe, T. M.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • Suárez-Morales, E||Iliffe, TM

publication date

  • August 2005