Crustacea in Bromeliads | Bromeliad Phytotelmata | Bromeliad Biota


Copepoda - copepods

Microcrustacea in phytotelmata include also Copepoda, and Picado (1913) was the first to give evidence of the cyclopoid copepod Ectocyclops phaleratus in these cryptic habitats. Later, the species was also found in Jamaica together with Tropocyclops jamaicensis (Reid & Janetzky 1996). However, the second published record of phytotelmatous copepods was given by Menzel (1922), who investigated bromeliads in a botanical garden near Buitenzorg, Indonesia. Besides his observation of the cosmopolitan harpacticoid copepod Phyllognathopus viguieri, a species also recorded for bromeliads in Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom (Janetzky et al. 1996, Maguire 1970, Scourfield 1939), Menzel (1926a) described the cyclopoids Bryocyclops anninae and B. bogoriensis, of which B. anninae was mentioned to occur together with B. chappuisi in Puerto Rican bromeliads (Maguire 1970). Menzel (1922, 1924) already suggested the possibility that copepods were carried together with the bromeliads. A similar conclusion was drawn by Noodt (1956) when he detected the harpacticoid Attheyella (Canthosella) aliena in bromeliads in a greenhouse near Göttingen, Germany. Species of the same genus were found in Brazil [A. (Attheyella) jureiae and A. (Canthosella) vera, Por & Hadel 1986], Costa Rica [A. (Canthosella) striblingi, Reid 1990] and in Jamaica [A. (Canthosella) mervini, Janetzky et al. 1996]. Additional records of cyclopoids include Fimbricyclops jimhensoni in Puerto Rico, where the species was found together with Tropocyclops prasinus as well as the harpacticoids Elaphoidella bidens and E. sewelli. The latter was already observed in Jamaica (Laessle 1961) and Puerto Rico (Maguire 1970). Rocha & Bjornberg added Muscocyclops operculatus to the list of cyclopoids, and more recently, Epactophanes richardi was found (Janetzky et al. 1996).

A Jamaican bromeliad-inhabiting copepod, Tropocyclops jamaicensis.
A Jamaican bromeliad-inhabiting copepod, Attheyella mervini



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Crustacea in Bromeliads
Bromeliad Phytotelmata