A New Subterranean Crustacean from the West Indies

Abstract

RECENTLY I had to establish a new order Spelaeo-griphacea in the division Peracarida for a small cavernicolous crustacean from Table Mountain, South Africa¹. Now Dr. L. B. Holthuis, of the Leyden Museum, has sent me for study three specimens of another interesting new subterranean ‘shrimp’ which he collected on February 10, 1957, in Devil's Hole, near Simon's Bay, St. Martin, Lesser Antilles. This is a wide sink-hole, about 5 m. deep, in a limestone slope some 300 m. from the sea. From the hole itself a few short, blind passages run inwards ; the specimens were caught in a tiny pool of mesohaline brackish water in one of these passages. A film of limestone particles covered most of the surface of the pool and a limestone sediment made the water turbid when stirred. Two days later, from the same pool, only some amphipods and nematodes were obtained.