STOMATOPOD CRUSTACEA 



FROM THE ATLANTIC COAST 



OF NORTHERN SOUTH AMERICA 



By Raymond B. Manning 



INTRODUCTION 



The stomatopod fauna of most areas in the western Atlantic is verj' 

 poorly known; that of the Atlantic coast of northern South America 

 is the least known of all. Records from this area are spotty and few, as ^ 

 pointed out by Holthuis (1959). His report on the stomatopods of Suri- 

 name and an earlier paper by Lemos de Castro (1955) on the stomato- 

 pods of Brazil are the only two papers dealing specifically with the 

 group in South American waters. Holthuis dealt with 6 species and 

 Lemos de Castro listed 13, yet Holthuis found none of the Brazilian 

 species in Suriname. 



In 1939 the Allan Hancock Foundation vessel VELERO III, under 

 the direction of Captain Hancock, made a short cruise to the Atlantic 

 coast of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. Until then, virtually no 

 marine collections had been made in this area. The cruise was planned 

 to provide comparative information on the faunas on either side of the 

 isthmus of Panama. Garth (1945) gave an account of the cruise and 

 the station records. 



It was originally intended that the present report include only the 

 material collected by the Hancock Expedition, which was taken pri- 

 marily from inshore areas. However, it was felt that addition of the 

 offshore material taken by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service vessel 

 OREGON off Brazil and the Guianas in 1957-58 would beneficially 

 round out the report so that most species known from Panama to 

 northern Brazil could be included. The keys have been devised to cover 

 all of the species previously reported from northern South America. 

 Those not covered by the present report are bracketed in the keys, 

 and locality in South America and sources of the records follow the 

 species names. 



ZOOGEOGRAPHIC NOTES 



The stomatopod fauna of the Atlantic coast of northern South 

 America is far richer than previously believed. The collections herein 



[1] 



