Check List 18(3): 575-581, doi: 10.15560/18.3.575

First record of Caromiobenella helgolandica (Claus, 1863) (Copepoda, Monstrilloida) from the Saudi waters of the Arabian Gulf

Biji Thomas^‡, Karuppasamy Manikandan^§, Mohammed Qurban^|, Todd Clardy^¶, Arumugam Sundaramanickam^#, Eduardo Suarez-Morales^¤

‡ Annamalai University, Parangipetai, India§ University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia| National Center for Wildlife, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia¶ Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, United States of America# Annamalai University, Parangipettai, India¤ El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Mexico

Corresponding author: Biji Thomas ( bijiishaan@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Jesser Fidelis de Souza Filho

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Thomas B, Manikandan K, Qurban M, Clardy T, Sundaramanickam A, Suarez-Morales E (2022) First record of Caromiobenella helgolandica (Claus, 1863) (Copepoda, Monstrilloida) from the Saudi waters of the Arabian Gulf. Check List 18(3): 575-581. https://doi.org/10.15560/18.3.575

Abstract

Caromiobenella helgolandica (Claus, 1863), a presumedly widespread monstrilloid copepod, is reported for the first time from Saudi waters of the Arabian Gulf; only females were found in zooplankton samples collected from Tarut Bay in the Arabian Gulf. Caromiobenella Jeon, Lee, & Soh, 2018 is a recently described genus that is distinguished by having modified male antennules. The nauplii of monstrilloid copepods are endoparasitic on molluscs and polychaetes, while the adults are free-living reproductive forms. This study is an unprecedented record of C. helgolandica from the Arabian Gulf region.

Keywords

Antennule, monospecificity, oral papilla, ovigerous spine, semi-parasitic