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Isopod crustaceans comprise a relatively speciose and abundant group of invertebrates found in diverse habitats and depths throughout the world. Described species, including the terrestrial forms, now number over 10,000 (see the World List of Isopods at www.nmnh.si.edu/iz/ isopod). Generally small in size, the majority being less than one centimeter in length, isopods include herbivores, omnivores, scavengers, obligate and temporary parasites, micropredators, and cave forms, both terrestrial and anchialine. Aquatic isopods inhabit benthic or planktonic environments from freshwater and estuaries to intertidal depths, coral reefs, and the deep seas. Some are specialists . Members of the family Aegidae infrequently attach to fish hosts, and only long enough to feed, thus viewed by some as micropredators. Those in the family Cymothoidae are exclusively ectoparasites on marine, freshwater, and brackish-water fishes. Members of the family Bopyridae are ectoparasites of other crustaceans, with juveniles sometimes using copepods as intermediate hosts. Those in the Gnathiidea suborder are entirely marine; larvae are frequently found as fish parasites but the adults do not feed. All isopods are related to mysidaceans, cumaceans, amphipods, and others in the superorder Peracarida, characterized by having a ventral brood pouch in the mature female. They are not known to have economic importance. The present list contains records of 169 isopod species found in the Gulf of Mexico (GMx). Fishery Bulletin 89 from the Fish and Wildlife Service, “Gulf of Mexico—Its Origin, Waters and Marine Life,” published in 1954, does not mention isopod crustaceans, perhaps due to a lack of specialists active at that time. In 1905 Harriet Richardson published her landmark “Monograph on the Isopods of North America,” which included all known records for the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1950s and during the next 2 decades several papers that dealt with occurrence and distribution of Gulf isopods appeared (see Clark and Robertson 1982) but no comprehensive studies on this group were done. Memoirs of the Hourglass Cruises presented surveys of Gulf isopod fauna by Menzies and Kruczynski, 1983 (exclusive of the suborder Epicaridea) and by Markham (1985), who covered the bopyrid isopods. Both works described several new species. Kensley and Schotte’s 1989 Guide to the Marine Isopod Crustaceans of the Caribbean 973 55 Isopoda (Crustacea) of the Gulf of Mexico Marilyn Schotte, John C. Markham, and George D. F. Wilson  Isopoda. After Miller 1968. 974 ~ Isopoda (Crustacea) all obligate parasites, include numerals in the “HabitatBiology ” cell that correspond to a number identifying each host. These numbers are listed immediately following the endnotes. Abbreviations Abbreviations in the “Habitat-Biology” and “Depth” cells are defined as follows: ben = benthic; crr = coral reef; dps = deep sea; end = endemic; epi = epibiotic; est = estuarine ; hsb = hard substrate; iif = inlet influenced; inf = infaunal; ins = interstitial; itd = intertidal; msp = mangrove swamp; ocs = outer continental shelf; osp = oceanic surface; par = parasitic; rbl = rubble; sgr = seagrass; slp = slope; unk = habitat unknown. Depth records from the GMx only are recorded in roman type, while those from the entire range are presented in italic typeface. Abbreviations under “GMx range” refer to the 4 quadrants of the Gulf of Mexico (ne, nw, se, sw) from which sampling has yielded each species. In the endnotes section, the abbreviation “USNM” refers to collections at the U.S. National Museum (National Museum of Natural History) of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. References 1. Adkison, D. 1982. Description of Dactylokepon sulcipes n. sp. (Crustacea: Isopoda: Bopyridae) and notes on D. caribaeus . Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 95: 702–708. 2. Adkison, D. 1984a. Probopyrinella heardi n. sp. (Isopoda: Bopyridae), a branchial parasite of the hippolytid shrimp Latreutes parvulus (Decapoda: Caridea). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 97: 550–554. included a list of known Gulf isopod species, then numbering 113, all from shallow-water habitats, but did not indicate specific localities or distributions. As discussed in Kensley and Schotte (1989), only 54% of the Gulf species recorded therein were also reported from the Caribbean Sea, indicating that there may be a true Gulf of Mexico fauna. Their conclusion that the Gulf of Mexico fauna contains an endemic component, a Caribbean component, and a warm-temperate component from the east coast of the United States was also reached by Topp and Hoff (1972) in an analysis of Gulf flatfishes. Of the 169 isopod records listed in the present chapter, 29 (about 17%) found so far are endemic. Our knowledge of the Gulf isopod fauna obviously remains incomplete, as the vast majority of species were collected...

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