Caligus angustatus Krøyer, 1863

Hayes, Polly, Justine, Jean-Lou & Boxshall, Geoffrey A., 2012, The genus Caligus Müller, 1785 (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida): two new species from reef associated fishes in New Caledonia, and some nomenclatural problems resolved, Zootaxa 3534, pp. 21-39 : 31

Caligus angustatus Krøyer, 1863

This species was originally described based on material from “cod and haddock” collected in Denmark ( Krøyer, 1863). The species level catalogue of Caligus produced by Margolis et al. (1975) shows no meaningful mention of this species other than inclusion in lists of species. Northern European caligids are well known and have been intensively sampled. It seems highly unlikely that this species has escaped detection since 1863. It is more likely that its identity has not been recognised because of inadequacies in the original description.

There are only a few candidate species and we consider it likely that C. angustatus may be a synonym of C. gurnardi Krøyer, 1863 , described in the same publication. The two species share the same segmentation and setation of leg 4, and this leg is unusually long relative to the length of the female genital complex. There are some differences in the proportions of the genital complex and abdomen but Kabata (1979) showed these features to be variable in C. gurnardi . We tentatively propose to treat C. angustatus Krøyer, 1863 as a junior subjective synonym of C. gurnardi Krøyer, 1863 .