A new genus for Cirolana troglexuma Botosaneanu & Iliffe, 1997, an anchialine cave dwelling cirolanid isopod (Crustacea, Isopoda, Cirolanidae) from the Bahamas

By

Bruce, Niel L.
Brix, Saskia
Balfour, Nicholas
Kihara, Terue C.
Weigand, Alexander M., 1984-
Mehterian, Sevag
Iliffe,Thomas M.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2017

Original Publication

Subterranean Biology

Volume

21

Pages

57-92

Subjects

cave , Cirolanidae , Distribution , DNA barcoding , Island , Species , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.21.11181

 

Abstract

Cirolana troglexuma Botosaneanu & Iliffe, 1997 is redescribed and a Lucayalana Bruce & Brix, gen. n. established for the species. In total 38 specimens were collected from Hatchet Bay Cave, Eleuthera. Specimens on which previous records of L. troglexuma (from Exuma Cays, Cat Island, and Eleuthera) were based have been re-examined when possible. The diagnostic identifying characters and purported apomorphies for Lucayalana gen. n. are: frontal lamina short, narrow, less than 7% width of labrum, not extending to anterior margin of head; pleonite 3 extending posteriorly to posterior of pleonite 5, laterally overlapping pleonites 4 and 5; ventrally broad, forming a strong ventrally directed blade; pereopods 1–3 merus inferior margin RS not molariform. Mitochondrial COI and 16S loci and the nuclear 18S locus data show that all specimens are the one species. Comparison to additional cirolanid COI sequence data (BOLD, GenBank) show that Lucayalana troglexuma is genetically distinct to all other cirolanid genera with available COI sequences. The single male and females have shared COI (with three females), 16S (eight females) and 18S sequences (two females).