Abstract
Abstract The loggerhead marine turtle is an ideal substrate for epibionts and presents the highest diversity of associated fauna among marine turtles. Here we report the occurrence of two amphipod species, Caprella andreae Mayer, 1890 and Podocerus chelonophilus (Chevreux and Guerne, 1888) from the carapace of one stranded Caretta caretta (Linnaeus , 1758) in Ubatuba, Sao Paulo state, Brazil. This is the first record of P. cheloniphilus for Brazil and for the South Atlantic Ocean.
Highlights
Marine epibionts are important tools to understand the individual and population dynamics of long-lived animals, such as turtles and whales (Caine, 1986; Cabezas et al, 2013; Iwasa-Arai et al, 2017; Iwasa-Arai et al, 2018)
The epibiont fauna can be divided into three categories: 1) true parasites, such as amphipods like Podocerus chelonophilus (Davenport, 1994); 2) commensals, such as barnacles in the families Lepadidae, Balanidae and
We report two species of amphipods associated with one stranded loggerhead turtle in Ubatuba, São Paulo State, Brazil
Summary
Marine epibionts are important tools to understand the individual and population dynamics of long-lived animals, such as turtles and whales (Caine, 1986; Cabezas et al, 2013; Iwasa-Arai et al, 2017; Iwasa-Arai et al, 2018). The associated epibiotic community is widely studied worldwide, and especially in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean (Caine, 1986; Frick et al, 1998; Fuller et al, 2010; Domènech et al, 2014). We report two species of amphipods associated with one stranded loggerhead turtle in Ubatuba, São Paulo State, Brazil. This is the first record of Podocerus cheloniphilus (Chevreux and Guerne, 1888) from the South Atlantic Ocean.
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