Redescription of Two Species of Triconia (Copepoda, Cyclopoida, Oncaeidae) Based on Their First Records in the Tropical Pacific

Abstract

Two species of the minuta-subgroup within the oncaeid copepod genus Triconia Böttger-Schnack, 1999 collected in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are newly recorded. A female T. minuta (Giesbrecht, 1893 [“1892”]) and both male and female T. umerus (Böttger-Schnack and Boxshall, 1990) from the northeast equatorial Pacific are redescribed with the comparison of its morphological details, which differs from previous studies, in terms of the larger body size, the length to width ratio of the genital double-somite, the relative length of the outer basal seta on P5, and the ornamentation of the appendages. The characters, which are used for identification, such as the length ratio of the outer subdistal and outer spine versus the distal spine on P3-P4, and the outer spine length of the middle exopodal segment on P3 and P4 are reported for the first time. Information on the variations in the endopodal spine lengths of swimming legs 2-4 is also provided for T. minuta and T. umerus, with the summary of the wide zoogeographical distribution of these two species.