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Type: Articles
Published: 2013-03-20
Page range: 270–290
Abstract views: 50
PDF downloaded: 3

Leaf litter copepods from a cloud forest mountain top in Honduras (Copepoda: Cyclopidae, Canthocamptidae)

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B–1000 Brussels, Belgium Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speology, Clinicilor 5, P.O.Box 58400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B–1000 Brussels, Belgium Operation Wallacea, Hope House, Old Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire, UK Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Universiteit Leuven, Ch. Deberiotstraat 32, B–3000 Leuven, Belgium
Crustacea Cyclopoida Harpacticoida Central America taxonomy new species

Abstract

Five different species of Copepoda were extracted from a leaf litter sample collected on the top (at 2000 m a.s.l.) of a cloud forested mountain in El Cusuco National Park, Honduras. Three of them, one Cyclopidae and two Canthocamptidae are new to science, and are described herein. Olmeccyclops hondo sp. nov. is the second representative thus far known of this New World genus. Moraria catracha sp. nov. and Moraria cusuca sp. nov. are the first formally described members of the genus occurring in Central America. The concept of a “Moraria-group” is considered to be an artificial grouping and is limited here to the genera Moraria and Morariopsis only. The distributional range of this group is essentially Holarctic, with the mountainous regions inHonduras, and probably in westNicaragua, as the southernmost limits in theNew World.