Comments on Morphological Characters, a Key to the Genera of the Cyamidae, and a Checklist of Cyamids and their Hosts

• Main Authors: Joel W. Martin, John E. Heyning
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Hurley; Moreton; Pacific; Queensland; Sperm whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.549.1969; http://crustacea.nhm.org/people/martin/publications/pdf/32.pdf

Abstract.-The cyamid amphipod species Isocyams kogiae Sedlak-Weinstein, 1992, is reported for the first time from southern California, extending the known range of the species from Moreton Island, Queensland, Australia, to the north-eastern Pacific. Additional descriptive notes are provided based on a single adult male taken from a pygmy sperm whale, Kogia breviceps (de Blainville, 1838), stranded near San Diego, California. Morphological differences between this spec-imen and the description of the type series are discussed. A revised key to the six currently recognized genera of the family Cyamidae is provided, as well as a checklist of all described species of the family, their cetacean hosts, and the ranges of those hosts. The amphipod crustacean family Cyamidae Rafinesque, 1815, is a relatively species-poor taxon, all members of which are ectoparasites on cetaceans (Laubitz 1982). Subsequent to Leung's (1967) review, where only 16 species in 5 genera were treated, there have been only one new genus ( S c u t o c ~ u s Lincoln and Hurley, 1974) and relatively few other species described (e.g. Leung 1970b, Lin-