The first parasitic copepod from a scaphopod mollusc host

Abstract

A new genus and species of parasitic copepod, Gadilicola daviesi n. g., n. sp., is described based on material found on two different scaphopod host species collected in deep water (2,900–2,910 m) in the Rockall Trough, North East Atlantic. The copepods inhabit the posterior mantle cavity of their scaphopod hosts, Polyschides olivi (Sacchi) and Pulsellum lofotense (M. Sars). Both sexes are described. The female body comprises an unsegmented prosomal trunk and a 2-segmented urosome and is more modified than that of the smaller male which comprises a 4-segmented prosome and 3-segmented urosome. The pattern of sexual dimorphism of the appendages is characteristic of the poecilostomatoid families within the order Cyclopoida. The form of the antenna with the major claws on the second endopodal segment and with the third segment reduced and displaced laterally, is shared with the informal Teredicola-group of genera, but it lacks the distinctive, derived form of mandible shared by these genera. The new genus is treated as the type of a new monotypic family, the Gadilicolidae.