Morphological variation of Eucyclops elegans (Herrick, 1884) (Copepoda: Cyclopoida) in the Americas and comments on records of Eucyclops conrowae Reid, 1992

Abstract

Based on an examination of material from different areas of the American continent, we evaluate the morphological variations of Eucyclops elegans (Herrick, 1884) with an emphasis on characters used in the current taxonomy of the genus. Eucyclops elegans is clearly a member of the serrulatus group. Differences in both female and male specimens from North America and South America and the lack of records in southern Mexico and Central America suggest that it is possible that this nominal species contains at least two taxa. Characters such as the ornamentation of the antennal basis and coxa of P4 are described for the tropical species E. conrowae Reid, 1992. This species is clearly not a member of the serrulatus group and differences with respect to the type specimens indicate that records of E. conrowae in Mexico do not correspond to this taxon and should be reassigned to other species.

Keywords:

• serrulatus group
• Eucyclopinae
• morphology
• systematic
• disjunct distributions

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Dr Hans-Walter Mittmann, Staatliches Museum Für Naturkunde, Karlsruhe, Dr Danielle Defaye, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, Dr Frank Ferrari and Dr Chad Walter, National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, and Rosa María Hernández, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Mexico, for loaning the material examined in this work. This work is part of N.F.M-S’s doctoral thesis developed at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR). This contribution was supported by CONACyT project 133404-Investigación Científica Básica 2009. The comments and suggestions of two anonymous reviewers are deeply appreciated.