Six New Species of Fresh and Brackish Water Ostracods (Crustacea) from Yakushima, Southern Japan
Twelve species of brackish and freshwater ostracods were collected from the island of Yakushima in southern Japan. Six species, belonging to the genera Cypria, Dolerocypris, Stenocypris, Schellencandona and Paracypria, are new and are described herein. The genus Schellencandona is reported for the first time outside Europe. Although a wide range of apparently suitable habitats was sampled for ostracods across the island, all specimens were recovered from or near the coast; further inland yielded no ostracods. The freshwater habitats around the coast of the island consist of springs and rockpools at the top of the shore above most high tide levels.
Thalassocypridine Ostracoda From Anchialine Habitats of Jamaica
In anchialine cave pools, sinkholes, and wells of Jamaica, three species of the paracypridine tribe Thalassocypridini dominate the podocopid ostracode faunas. Dolerocypria convoluta, new species, Thalassocypria sarbui, new species, and Pontoparta hartmanni Keyser are described. A newly discovered pair of globular organs in T. sarbui may be associated with osmoregulation.
The invertebrate fauna of tropical American caves, Part III: Jamaica, an introduction
Jamaica, one of the smaller of the four islands of the Greater Antilles, is 150 miles long and 40 miles wide. About two-thirds of the island is underlain by limestones. This, together with an average 74 inch rainfall, has yielded an abundance of caves. Over 700 caves have been catalogued. Most of these occur in the White Limestone formation of Oligocene age, which reaches a thickness up 2,000 feet. The White Limestone is underlain by middle Eocene Yellow Limestone and is folded along an east-west axis. Fewer caves have been formed in Cretaceous limestone, gypsum deposits, sub recent raised coral rock, and post-Miocene limestone (Figure 1). The Limestone plateau of central Jamaica is favoured for cave development because of its watershed which has a gentle gradient off the 1,500 to 3,000 feet high insoluableCentral Inlier. This metamorphic ridge separates the limestone plateau into two main watersheds and the water running north or south disappears in numerous sinkholes and closed valleys in the extremely porous White Limestone (Figure 2). The purposes of this paper are several: to bring together the scattered literature on the physical speleology of Jamaica; to bring together the little that has been published on Jamaican biospeleology; to give a general summary of the knowledge of the fauna resulting from my field work; and to make available descriptive data on the cave sites that have been biologically studied. A complete listing of the fauna of Jamaican caves and a synthesis of the ecology, evolution, and zoogeography of this fauna will be published in a much later paper, after the many necessary taxonomic studies are completed.