Copepoda of the family Lamippidae from the western Atlantic and the Caribbean

The Lamippidae form a rather homogeneous family of copepods endoparasitic on octocorals. The great majority of the species (17 out of 24) is described from the Mediterranean Sea. These species are relatively well-known, thanks to the efforts of DE ZULUETA (1908, 1910, 1911) and BOULIGAND (various papers, summarized in BOULIGAND, 1966). Outside the Mediterranean, Lamippidae have only incidentally been recorded, from the eastern Atlantic (European coasts, Sierre Leone), Indonesia, the Red Sea, and the Antarctic (references in HUMES, 1957, BOULIGAND, 1960, and STOCK, 1972). Not a single species was recorded hitherto from the western Atlantic or Caribbean region. Entire specimens were studied and measured in lactophenol; the appendages were dissected and mounted in Reyne’s modification of Faure’s medium. These slides were studied under oil immersion magnification, with a Reichert interference microscope. Like LAUBIER (1972), I was unable to distinguish with certainty in my preserved material the various sclerites described by BOULIGAND (1960); so, for the purpose of this study, I had to rely entirely on classical alpha-taxonomy.