Badijella jalzici – a new genus and species of calanoid copepod (Calanoida, Ridgewayiidae) from an anchialine cave on the Croatian Adriatic coast

Abstract

A new genus and species of calanoid copepod belonging to the family of Ridgewayiidae is described from an anchialine cave on the small island of Badija, Croatia. In the new species Badijella jalzici, body length varies from 720–870 µm in both sexes. The prosome is 6-segmented, the female urosome is 4-segmented and 5-segmented in the male. The antennules are symmetrical and 26-segmented in the female, and 23-segmented on right side in the male, with two areas of geniculation. The caudal rami are symmetrical and longer than wide. The mouthparts and swimming legs 1–4 are identical in both sexes. The female fifth leg is biramous and symmetrical; the male fifth legs are strongly developed, asymmetrical, biramous on both sides, endopods 2-segmented and exopods 2-segmented and complex in structure.

Keywords:

• Stygofauna
• copepoda
• calanoid copepods
• anchialine caves
• Adriatic Sea

I would like to thank Branko Jalzic and the Croatian Bio-Speleological Society in Zagreb for collecting the material on which this work was based. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on the improvement of this paper. This paper is supported by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport.

Notes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark