Redescription of the poorly known calanoid copepod Pontella karachiensis Fazal-Ur-Rehman, 1973 from the Red Sea with notes on its feeding habits

Labidocera boxshalli sp. nov., a new calanoid copepod (Crustacea; Pontellidae) from the Red Sea

“…Although the Red Sea plankton originating from the Indian Ocean consists of 71 species of pontellid copepods (Silas and Pillai 1973), the diversity of this group in the Red Sea is relatively low, comprising 13 species only (El-Sherbiny and Ueda 2008;Halim 1969;Ünal and Shmeleva 2002). The low number of pontellid species recorded in the Red Sea may be explained by the characteristic neustonic nature of this group (Mauchline 1998), sampling methods and time, and/or by limited sampling effort.…”

New morphological and molecular data on the little-known pontellid Calanopia media Gurney, 1927 (Crustacea, Copepoda, Calanoida) from the Red Sea, with notes on its diel vertical distribution

“…During the last two decades, six species of pontellids have been originally described as new species or were first recorded from the Red Sea: Calanopia kideysi by Ünal and Shmeleva (2002), Labidocera boxshalli El-Sherbiny & Ueda, 2010 by El-Sherbiny and Ueda (2010), Calanopia tulina by El-Sherbiny and Al-Aidaroos (2017), Pontella princeps Dana, 1849 by El-Sherbiny (2009), Labidocera karachiensis Fazal-Ur-Rehman, 1973 by El-Sherbiny andUeda (2008), and Calanopia thompsoni by Al-Aidaroos et al (2016). However, the diversity of this family in the Red Sea is rather low (17 species) compared with that of the Indian Ocean (77 species as reported by Razouls et al 2019), from which the Red Sea fauna has originated (Al-Aidaroos et al 2019).…”

“…The pontellid (Calanoida) fauna of the Red Sea contains a surprisingly low proportion of the Indo-Pacific fauna, from which it is apparently derived (El-Sherbiny and Ueda 2008;El-Sherbiny 2009). Five genera and 17 pontellid species have been recorded from the Red Sea (Al-Aidaroos et al 2019;El-Sherbiny and Al-Aidaroos 2017;Razouls et al 2019), whereas 77 pontellid species are present in the greater Indian Ocean (Razouls et al 2019).…”

New record and redescription of Calanopia thompsoni A. Scott, 1909 (Copepoda, Calanoida, Pontellidae) from the Red Sea, with notes on the taxonomic status of C. parathompsoni Gaudy, 1969 and a key to species

“…Recent studies of the neritic and coastal waters of the Red Sea have revealed an assemblage of calanoid copepods including several species new to science (Ohtsuka et al 2000, El-Sherbiny and Ueda 2008a, 2010, El-Sherbiny 2011, El-Sherbiny and Al-Aidaroos 2015), in addition to several new records (El-Sherbiny and Ueda 2008b, El-Sherbiny 2009, El-Sherbiny and Al-Aidaroos 2013, 2014). The genus Calanopia accommodates 17 nominal species (Razouls et al 2015).…”