Some Notes on Parasitic Copepoda

Abstract

The Lernaeopodidae are a highly specialized group of parasitic Copepoda presumably derived from a Caligoid stem, and some clue to their systematic position should be found in their development. Some stages are known in ten genera, but it is only in Achtheres, Salmincola, and Clavella that the whole, or nearly the whole, series of stages has been described. There is a very strong tendencyto suppress the nauplius as a free stage though, when so suppressed, there may be moults corresponding to nauplius and metanauplius (Zandt, 1935). In some species there is certainly a free nauplius, but it probably moults into the copepodid in a very short time.