An annotated checklist of Brazilian sea spiders (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida)

Abstract

The Brazilian coast is over 7000 km long. It is comprised of diverse environments such as reef, lagoons and mangroves. These diverse habitats support great biological diversity but, due to the extension of the coast, knowledge of the pycnogonid fauna is poor and fragmented. Records from Brazil began with Krøyer in the 1840s. Collections from Brazilian waters by the "H.M.S. Challenger" and "Vettor Pisani" expeditions were published by Hoek (1881) and Schimkewitsch (1888). For almost 50 years there were no further publications, until Marcus (1940c) published his comprehensive paper on the South American fauna. Publications peaked between the 1940s and 1960s, with papers by Marcus, Sawaya, Mello-Leitão, Corrêa, Du Bois- Reymond Marcus, Hedgpeth and Stock. Approximately 40 papers based on material from Brazilian waters were published at this time, which recorded 65 species for Brazil. The aim of the present work is to provide a checklist of the Brazilian pycnogonids while providing a historical review and a full account of the corresponding literature.

New records of Colossendeis (Pycnogonida) from the Potiguar Basin, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

“…In Brazil the expedition visited the São Pedro and São Paulo Archipelago, Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia, between August 28 and September 14, 1873 (Grohmann et al, 2016). The collected pycnogonids were analyzed by Hoek (1881), who reported Pallenopsis fluminensis (Krøyer, 1844) and Anoplodactylus insignis (Hoek, 1881) for the Brazilian coast (Lucena, Christoffersen, 2018), both coming from shallow waters (36.5 m). Another two species were collected in the Argentinian Basin (Child, 1982), Phoxichilidium patagonicum var.…”

Picnogónidos (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida: Pantopoda) de la bahía de Banderas, Pacífico mexicano

“…14 (1): 71-90, enero-junio 2022. ISSN: 1659-455X • e-ISSN: 1659-407X DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/revmar.14-2.5 et al 2018), y han sido extensivamente estudiados, de tal forma que el Ártico presenta el 20% de las especies del mundo (Soler-Membrives et al 2014;Soler-Membrives & Munilla, 2015), mientras que hay regiones como la costa Atlántica de Brasil que registra solo 5% de las especies del mundo (Lucena & Christoffersen, 2018), o los litorales mexicanos bañados por las aguas del Pacífico, golfo de México y mar Caribe con un 3.6% de la diversidad en el nivel mundial (de León-Espinosa et al 2021). Como parte de su distribución, recientemente se han registrado en cuevas de Yucatán, México inundadas por agua salobres (Álvarez & Ojeda, 2018) y en sustratos artificiales como son muelles de marinas (de León-Espinosa et al 2021).…”

Some Pycnogonida (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) from the "Paulo Young" Invertebrate Collection (CIPY) of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Brazil

“…More than 1340 species have been described (Munilla León & Soler-Membrives 2009;Appeltans et al 2012). Yet, knowledge of the group remains scarce, particularly in Brazil (Lucena & Christoffersen 2018a). Some factors perhaps explain the general lack of interest in this group, such as their low abundance, efficient camouflage, small size with aberrant forms, and lack of economic relevance (Arango 2003).…”

“…The Pycnogonida are a case in point. Despite having been well studied from 1940 to 1970 (see Lucena & Christoffersen 2018a), most of this studied material has been subsequently lost. Furthermore, most large collections in Brazil do not have significant representatives of pycnogonids or fail to provide information regarding this group in their collections.…”