Redescription of Dendrocephalus affinis (Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae): first record of the species from Colombia and additional morphological observations useful in taxonomy

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThe finding of a fairy shrimp population belonging to the genus Dendrocephalus in a temporary pond from the La Guajira Department of Colombia promoted the interest in evaluating this resource for its potential use for aquaculture purposes. In the present paper the population was allocated to Dendrocephalus affinis Pereira, 1984, only known so far from the type locality in Venezuela. The species was redescribed, providing new morphological observations on the male, useful in taxonomy. In addition, two characters on the female, not mentioned up to now in the genus, the presence of a baso-lateral short process with a spine in the endopod of the first thoracopod, and the presence of one square cell among all the pentagonal ones in the polyhedral resting egg, could help in the specific identification of dendrocephalid samples without males. The present is the first record of the species from Colombia.

Morphological review of the freshwater fairy shrimp Dendrocephalus brasiliensis Pesta, 1921 (Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae)

“…However, Hirose et al (2015) demonstrated for Dendrocephalus orientalis that such morphological characteristics can vary among individuals of the same species, as was also verified for Dendrocephalus affinis by Cohen et al (2014), reinforcing the need to use other morphological characteristics that can be used for species identification. According to Hirose et al (2015), important morphological features for identification of D. brasiliensis are: 1) branch 2A podiform; 2) second thoracopod endopodite without basolateral spine; 3) first thoracopod endopodite without basolateral lobe; and 4) branch 1V anterior sub-branch with distal portion swollen.…”

“…In branch 1V, the anterior sub-branch is longer than the posterior branch and the distal portion is swollen, as in D. affinis (see Cohen et al, 2014), D. …”

“…The main particularity of branch 2D is the presence of several small spines on the distal third of sub-branch III. This morphological characteristic is also shared with D. affinis, D. orientalis and D. thieryi (see Rabet and Thiéry, 1996;Rabet, 2006;Cohen et al, 2014;Hirose et al, 2015). Branch 2A shows a strong column extending in one or two projections and a cell pad at the base, as already observed for other dendrocephalids; the distal end is podiform as in D. affinis (see Cohen et al, 2014), Dendrocephalus conosuris Ruiz, 1995 (see Pereira andRuiz, 1995), D. cornutus (see Pereira and Belk, 1987), D. goiasensis (see Rabet and Thiéry, 1996), D. spartaenovae (see Pereira, 1983) and D. thieryi (see Rabet, 2006), but differs from the hookshaped projection described for other species, such as D. orientalis (see Rabet and Thiéry, 1996;Hirose et al, 2015) and D. carajaensis (see Rogers et al, 2012).…”

“…Other species, such as Dendrocephalus affinis Pereira, 1984, Dendrocephalus goiasensis, D. orientalis, Dendrocephalus spartaenovae Margalef, 1961 and Dendrocephalus thieryi, may have one or more spines on each arm (Pereira, 1983;Rabet and Thiéry, 1996;Rabet, 2006;Cohen et al, 2014;Hirose et al, 2015). Furthermore, spines were not observed in the eyes of D. brasiliensis, similar to D. sarmentosus (see Pereira and Belk, 1987), D. carajaensis (see Rogers et al, 2012) and some individuals of D. orientalis (see Hirose et al, 2015).…”

“…In recent decades, a growing demand for alternative sources of food for aquaculture has attracted the interest of researchers to the genus Dendrocephalus (Cohen et al, 2014). Among the species that occur in Brazil, D. brasiliensis is notable for the increase in the number of published studies that address its use as a food source to replace Artemia Leach, 1819 (Yflaar andOlivera, 2003;Carneiro et al, 2004;Lopes et al, 2007).…”