AUTHOR=Belmonte Genuario 

TITLE=A New Species of Pseudocyclopiidae (Crustacea, Copepoda, Calanoida) From an Anchialine Environment of South-Eastern Italy

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.857161

DOI=10.3389/fevo.2022.857161

ISSN=2296-701X

ABSTRACT=<p>A new species of stygobiont copepod (<italic>Stygocyclopia badinoi</italic> sp.nov.) is described from the anchialine environment of <italic>Zinzulùsa</italic> cave (Castro, Italy). It is the first Pseudocyclopiidae (Copepoda, Calanoida) to be reported from Italian fauna and the second one reported from the Mediterranean area. The current species is characterized by the largest body size among congeners and by a general lacking of spiny fields on the cuticle of Urosome and P5. The genus has representatives in anchialine environments of coastal caves in Australia, New Caledonia, Philippines, Canaries, and Balearic islands, and the present Mediterranean report is a relict station well included in the frame of an ancient and widespread geographic distribution of ancestral Pseudocyclopiidae along the Tethys Ocean coastlines.</p>