Studies on Indian copepods. 5. On eleven new species of marine cyclopoid copepods from the south-east coast of India

摘要

SEWELL (1949) has pointed out that our knowledge of the cyclopoid copepods ofudIndian waters, especially those inhabiting the littoral regions in association withudinvertebrates and sea weeds and in which the type of existence is usually referred toudas ' semi-parasitic', is extremely scanty. The oldest account available on this littleudknown crustacean group in our waters is that of Thompson & Scott (1903) who,udin their supplementary reports of the faunistic survey of the Pearl Banks of Ceylon,udgave brief description of the copepods they came across. The cyclopoid copepodsudthey dealt with were mostly obtained by examination of washings from dredgedudmaterials such as ascidians, sponges, corals, pearl oysters etc. Although the exactuddepth at which they were caught is not given in specific instances it is presumablyudfrom sea bottoms, at least a few fathoms deep. ' This collection of copepods haveudproved to be exceedingly rich and varied, containing as it does, no less than 283udspecies, of which 76 are new to science while at least 10 new genera are required'ud(Thomp. & Scott, loc. cit.). Of these copepods, the ' semi-parasitic' cyclopoidsudwere one of the richest groups; it was represented by 42 species of which 25 wereudnew and no less than six new genera were required to accommodate eight of the newudspecies. The only other exhaustive work on these tiny creatures in the Indian watersudis that of Sewell {loc. cit.) who described the species obtained during the JohnudMurray Expedition and also those he gathered during the long years of his valuableudservice in this country in the Marine Survey of India. He recorded 44 species belongingudto this group, out of which 25 were new and 3 new genera and 2 sub-genera,udhad to be created to include some of the new species. Krishnaswamy (1954) recentlyudreported three species from Madras coast; all the three are new to our watersudand one of them is new to science. Attention may be drawn here to ihe 2 newudgenera of cyclopoid copepods that have recently been reported from this areaud(Ummerkutty, 1960a and 1960b).