Malacostraca

Rogers, D. Christopher & Cruz-Rivera, Edwin, 2021, A preliminary survey of the inland aquatic macroinvertebrate biodiversity of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Journal of Natural History 55 (13 - 14), pp. 799-850 : 812-813

Malacostraca

Very few freshwater malacostracans have been reported from the Virgin Islands, the majority of records being decapods ( Rathbun 1933; Schmitt 1935). Broodbakker (1984) mentions thermosbanaceans from well samples in the ‘ Virgin Islands.’ The species found was later described as Tethysbaena calsi Wagner, 1994 , and was collected from numerous wells on Tortola and St. John.

Narrow range, endemic freshwater mysid shrimp are reported from Jamaica and Cuba, plus narrow range, endemic stygiomysid shrimp are reported from Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic (Rogers et al. 2020).

Amphipoda

Two freshwater amphipod species are reported from the Virgin Islands (Rogers et al. 2020), and we present two new species records below. Gammarus minus (Say, 1818) (Gammaridae) has been reported from Cuba, Ottenwalderia kymbalion (Jaume and Wagner 1998) (Lysianassidae) is reported from the Dominican Republic, and Spelaeonicippe provo (Stock and Vermeulen, 1982) (Pardaliscidae) is known only from Turks and Caicos.

The Hyalellidae is represented in the Caribbean by two described species. Hyalella caribbeana (Bousfield, 1996) is reported from Guadeloupe. Hyalella squamosa Mateus and Mateus, 1987 (not 1990 as reported by González and Watling 2002; Baldinger 2004) was described from the exact same locality, are not clearly morphologically separated, and are likely synonymous.

A number of groundwater families are known from the Caribbean, and more species are probably awaiting discovery. Metacrangonyctidae and Crangoweckeliidae each have a few species on Hispaniola, and the Ingolfiellidae has members in Bonaire, Curaçao, and Aruba. In the Hadziidae , Metaniphargus beattyi Shoemaker, 1942 , was described from a well at Frederiksted in St. Croix ( Shoemaker 1942; Beatty 1968). Alloweckelia gurneei (Holsinger and Peck, 1968) and Metaniphargus bousfieldi (Stock, 1977) are only known from Puerto Rico. Several other members of this family occur in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Barbuda, Jamaica, Haiti, Aruba, Curaçao, St. Martin and Anguilla (Rogers et al. 2020). Finally, Bogidiellidae has representatives on Barbuda, St. Martin, and Haiti, plus Stygogidiella virginalis ( Stock, 1981) from wells on Tortola and St. John, and Stygogidiella bredini (Shoemaker, 1959) is known only from Barbuda ( Stock 1981). Another species is known from Haiti (Rogers et al. 2020).