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Vol. 51 No. 4, 2012
Studies on Subterranean Copepods from Italy, with
Descriptions of Two New Epikarstic Species from a Cave in Sicily
Vezio
Cottarelli1, Maria Cristina Bruno3,*, Maria
Teresa Spena2, and Rosario Grasso2
1Dipartimento
per l’Innovazione dei Sistemi Biologici, Agroalimentari e Forestali,
Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Largo dell’Università snc, Viterbo
I-01100, Italy. E-mail:cottarel@unitus.it
2Dipartimento di scienze biologiche, geologiche, ed
ambientali, Università degli Studi di Catania, Via Androne 81, Catania
I-95124, Italy. E-mail:rosagra@unict.it
3Fondazione Edmund Mach, Centro Ricerca e Innovazione,
Via E. Mach 1, S. Michele all’Adige (TN) I-38010, Italy
Vezio Cottarelli, Maria Cristina Bruno, Maria Teresa
Spena, and Rosario Grasso (2012) This paper presents and discusses the
copepod fauna collected from several rimstone pools in Conza Cave
(Palermo, Sicily). The geology, lithology, and hydrology of the cave
suggest that all of the copepods collected in the pools were dislodged
from the epikarst and were carried by dripping water into the pools.
The copepod fauna included the first record for Sicily of the Italian
endemic stygobiotic cyclopoid Speocyclops
italicus, the 1st cave
Parastenocarididae of Sicily Parastenocaris
diversitatis sp. nov.,
and the stygobiotic Canthocamptidae Bryocamptus
(Rheocamptus) stillae sp. nov. Remarks on the
ecology and biology of the collected taxa are presented and discussed.
Key words: Cave fauna, Speocyclops, Bryocamptus, Parastenocaris, New species.
*Correspondence: Tel: 39-0461-615555.
E-mail:cristina.bruno@fmach.it
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