Abstract
Abstract This paper describes two new species of parasitic copepods of the family Chondracanthidae H. Milne Edwards, 1840. Acanthochondria krishnai sp. n. is described from Dollfus' stargrazer, Uranoscopus guttatus Cuvier, collected from Muttom and Colachel, Tamil Nadu, and Chondracanthus kabatai sp. n. from Silvery john dory, Zenopsis conchifer Lowe, collected from Neendakara, Quilon, Kerala, both along the southwest coast of India. Both the species are described and illustrated based on the fresh female and male specimens collected from India. Both the species are the first Indian representative of the respective genera. The checklist of Indian species of the family Chondracanthidae is also presented.
Highlights
Two new species of chondracanthids from India remains little studied in India, with only nine species belonging to the five genera described far, without any representatives from the genera Acanthochondria and Chondracanthus
The parasitic copepod fauna infesting the commercial fishes are comparatively well studied in India, especially from the southwest coast
The total number of species of chondracanthids far recorded from India is only nine
Summary
Milne Edwards, 1840, can be recognized by the following combination of characters: body segmentation largely concealed, cephalon, with or without processes, not fused with any of the trunk segments; neck formed from first two pedigerous segments, trunk with or without processes; genital segment and abdomen fused; antennule fleshy and the antenna is strongly prehensile; two pairs of highly modified, fleshy and bi-or trilobate legs; dwarf male attached to the genito-abdomen of female (Ho, 1970; Kabata, 1979; Pillai, 1985; Ho and Kim, 1995; Cantatore and Timi, 2010).
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