Copepods from the Interstitial Fauna of a Sandy Beach

Abstract

Attention was first drawn by Wilson (1932) to the large copepod fauna which can be found in an ordinary sandy beach. In his introduction he describes his method of collecting these copepods (p. 7) and in the course of the paper describes a number of new genera and species thus obtained. Sand-dwelling animals, particularly Crustacea and worms (excluding sessile forms), are usually regarded as burrowers, since in their migrations they displace the particles of their environment. The fauna opened up by Wilson's discovery is of a quite different type. In contrast to true sand-burrowing animals, these copepods do not displace the particles of the sand through which they move but crawl over the surface of the grains, which, by capillarity, always hold more or less water, even high up on the beach at low tide. Such copepods, together with nematodes, rotifers, protozoa and other animals sufficiently small, may be regarded as part of an “interstitial” fauna.