Zoology, A rediscription of two Parasitic Copepods from Bermuda

Yeatman, Harry

When investigating the littoral and neritic copepods of Bermuda during July and August 1955, I became interested in the apparent scarcity of parasitic copepods on fishes observed. A preliminary collection of 2 squirrelfishes, Holocentrus ascension0s ( Osbeck); 1 hamlet, Epinephelus striatus (Bloch); 4 gray snappers, Lutianus griseus (Linnaeus) ; 7 breams, Diplodus argenteus (Cuvier and Valenciennes); and 1 chub, Kyphosus sectatrix (Linnaeus) was examined for parasitic Crustacea. The last three species carried an abundance of parasitic isopods, Exocirolana mayana (lves), but none was infested with copepods. These isopods have been sent to the U.S. National Museum (99587). Wilson (1913) found that isopods were quite abundant and that parasitic copepods were few on the fish he examined at Jamaica, B.W.I. On August 17, 1955, David Menzel, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, collected 2 female copepods from a tiger rockfish or gag, M ycteroperca tigris ( Cuvier and Valenciennes), taken off North Rock, Bermuda. These were given to me and proved to be perfect specimens of Dentigryps curtus Wilson. These differed from Wilson's (1913) original description chiefly in the armature of the feet and caudal rami. Through the kindness of the Division of Marine Invertebrates of the U. S. National Museum, I was able to examine the type specimen and two paratype specimens, and these showed by the presence of attachment bases that some prominent setae had been broken off.

Zoology, A rediscription of two Parasitic Copepods from Bermuda

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