Regresar

A new species and host range of Therodamas (Copepoda, Ergasilidae) from the Eastern Tropical Pacific

Abstract:

A new species of the genus Therodamas Krøyer, 1863, one of the three mesoparasitic genera of the copepod family Ergasilidae, is described in detail. The description is based on material collected from the yellowfin snooker (Centropomus robalito Jordan & Gilbert, 1882) from a lagoonal system on the Mexican coast of the Eastern Tropical Pacific. The new species differs from its known congeners in the general structure and proportions of the body and details of the armature of legs 1 and 4. It is most closely similar to T. dawsoni Cressey, 1972 from Panama but differs from this species in several characters including the presence of rounded processes on the antennae, the lack of a spine on the first exopodal segment of leg 4, the presence of four setae on the second exopodal segment of the same leg, and short, spiniform setae on the terminal segments of legs 2 and 3. Species of Therodamas have been hitherto recorded from six teleost families; the finding of the new species from a member of the Centropomidae expands the known host range of this group of ergasilid copepods and confirms the low host specificity of the genus Therodamas, but data suggest that specificity is high at the species level. The genus is restricted to the Neotropical region, but it has not been previously reported from north of Central America; its finding in the tropical Pacific waters of Mexico marks a new latitudinal range for the genus in the Neotropics. It also represents the second record of Therodamas from the Eastern Tropical Pacific and the first notice of the genus in Mexican waters. © 2008 Brill Academic Publishers.