A revision of the genus Arenopontia Kunz, 1937 (Copepoda, Harpacticoida, Arenopontiidae), including the description of five new species
Author
Sak, Serdar
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Literature, Balıkesir University, Balıkesir, Türkiye.
Author
Karaytuğ, Süphan
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Mersin University, Mersin, Türkiye.
Author
Huys, Rony
Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW 7 5 BD, UK.
text
Zootaxa
2024
2024-04-04
5433
1
1
50
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5433.1.1
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.5433.1.1
1175-5326
10953646
06E5A735-A276-41D7-A9EE-B09642D953B6
Family
Arenopontiidae
Martínez Arbizu & Moura, 1994
No new species or illustrated records have been added since
Sak
et al.
(2008)
. Readers are advised to consult this publication for a review of the taxonomic history of the family and its current generic composition. A revision of the most species-rich genus,
Neoleptastacus
Nicholls, 1945
, will be published elsewhere (Sak
et al.
in prep.).
Although members of the
Arenopontiidae
are predominantly littoral, inhabiting sandy beaches in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, some species have occasionally been reported from subtidal habitats, particularly in northwestern Europe (
e.g.
Van Damme & Heip 1976
;
Herman
et al.
1986
;
Smol
et al.
1989
;
Huys
et al.
1992
;
Bonne 2003
;
Willems
et al.
2009
). One extreme example is the discovery of
Psammoleptastacus arenaridus
Pennak, 1942
at a depth of
100 m
north of Cape Hatteras off the coast of North Carolina (
Coull 1971
) but this record requires verification. Except for the
Parastenocarididae
which inhabit fresh groundwater, harpacticoid families that accommodate exclusively interstitial species are typically restricted to the marine environment. This habitat preference primarily applies also to the
Arenopontiidae
although some members of
Arenopontia
have occasionally been reported to make incursions into freshwater and oligohaline habitats.
Noodt (1962)
recorded an unidentified species of
Arenopontia
from a primarily oligohaline lake near
La Libertad
in
El Salvador
while
Cottarelli
et al.
(1994
, 1998) collected
A.
cfr.
subterranea
from a number of localities with freshwater influence in the
Latium
and Viterbo provinces in
Italy
.