INTRODUCTION 5 



but nomenclatural comments are included in the few cases where a species 

 may be known under a more commonly used name. Usually, a figure of the 

 entire animal of each species is given. Diagnostic features are usually illus- 

 trated. Unless otherwise stated, all illustrations are original and by the au- 

 thors, and were made from actual specimens. 



Common and scientific names of fishes that are hosts to parasitic isopods 

 are taken from the American Fisheries Society special publication no. 12 

 (Robins et al., 1980). 



Finally, a word of warning. Difficulties may be experienced in using the 

 keys, for which there may be any of several reasons: characters seen in the 

 animal may not clearly conform to those in the key (in which case refer to the 

 figures, as well as to good recent descriptions or diagnoses); your material 

 may be a new record for the region; or you may have an undescribed species 

 (in which case refer to more comprehensive treatments of the group). 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Much of the material covered in this work comes from the many collectors 

 who have deposited specimens from several regions of the Caribbean in the 

 collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. Rather than risk the unwitting omission of a name, we thank all of these 

 individuals collectively. Without their efforts, our knowledge of the Carib- 

 bean fauna would be the poorer. 



Material was borrowed from several institutions. We thank the following 

 scientists for their assistance in this connection: Jan Stock and Dirk Platvoet 

 of the Instituut voor Taxonomische Zoologie, University of Amsterdam; 

 Jean Just and Torben Wolff of the Zoological Museum, University of 

 Copenhagen; Jacques Forest of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 Paris; Richard Heard of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, Ocean 

 Springs, Mississippi; Willard Hartman of the Peabody Museum of Natural 

 History, Yale University; Herbert W. Levi of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, Harvard University; Harold S. Feinberg of the American Museum 

 of Natural History, New York; John E. Miller of the Harbor Branch Founda- 

 tion, Florida; and Paula M. Mikkelsen of the Indian River Coastal Museum 

 at Fort Pierce, Florida. 



Bruce Collette of the National Marine Fisheries Laboratory at the 

 Smithsonian Institution assisted with fish names used in this work, for which 

 we are grateful. 



We thank the staff of the Scanning Electron Microscope Laboratory of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and especially Susann Braden, who produced the 

 electron micrographs used here. 



