New Amphipod Discovered in Caves in Caucasus Mountains
Posted on May 26, 2015
A new species of amphipod has been discovered in caves in the Caucuses mountains. The typhlogammarid amphipod was discovered by an international team of scientists in the limestone karstic caves of Chjalta mountain range.
The blind and unpigmented amphipods were collection from two different locations using a fine-mesh hand-held dip net. The new amphipod belongs to the genus Zenkevitchia. It is the second known species from this group. It has been named Zenkevitchia yakov after Russian biospeleologist Prof Yakov Birstein.
The researchers say in a statement, "Taking into consideration that the first member of Zenkevitchia was described 75 years ago this is still an understudied group of cave animals. Despite their unique morphology featuring 'filtration mouth parts', today we still know nothing about the biology of this relict group of animals."
The researchers also say that Z. yakovi has no reliable morphological differences with the known species, Z. admirabilis. The new species was discovered through sequencing of the barcode region of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI).
A research paper on the new species can be found here in the journal, Subterranean Biology.
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