These individuals were collected from the walls of an experimental aquarium. The organisms living in the experimental aquarium are marine amphipods. The aquarium has a closed-circuit filter system, the salinity of the water is ~ 36 ‰ and the replacement saline water is created by using artificial salts.
Hi!
I would say these are harpacticoid copepods. It may be the genus Euterpina? (although don't take my word on the genus)
Hi! As Nicolas said, they are harpacticoid copepods, if you want reach a genus or species level you must cut the fifth leg (P5) and look carefully the urogenital somite (Gn). In other hand, in which water, exactly, they were sampled? Cause, taxonomy is very limited in Pacific, calanoids are exceptions. Regards.
Nicolas Djeghri Thanks for the quick reply! I was assuming they were copepods but I wasn't sure, since I have no previous experience on these animals!
Javier Jesús Coasaca-Céspedes I am not so very interested in reaching species level. They are not part of the experiment.
Now, the question is how they got into my aquarium, in the first place?!?!?! :)
I use tap water and artificial salts in order to create water with salinity of ~36 ‰ . The marine amphipods (caprellids, to be exact) which live in the aquarium were collected from a fishfarm but it's been 90 days since I introduced them in the aquarium.Those pesky little copepods appeared just recently... I suppose they were carried via the initial population of caprellids and they just managed to bloom the last couple of days.
In any case, thank you all very much for your contributions!
Alexis Lolas I agree with Harpacticoida but to me they look relatives of Clytemnestridae. For more detailed analysis you can use https://copepodes.obs-banyuls.fr/en/ficheord.php?ord=3#superf4 is a very well-done guide for copepods.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Anatomy
- Tissue