Authors

K Hadfield¹; S van der Wal²; NJ Smit¹; NL Bruce¹; B Olaosebikan³;  ¹ North-West University, South Africa;  ² Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany;  ³ Federal College of Freshwater Fisheries Technology, Nigeria

Discussion

The isopod fauna of tropical and subtropical West Africa remains one of the least documented regions of the world and the family Cymothoidae Leach, 1818 is no exception. With a mere eleven publications on the family in this region since 1920, it is unsurprising that the predominately branchial attaching genus Mothocya Costa, in Hope, 1851, one of the better-known genera of the family, remains very poorly known from this region. The first record of Mothocya from West Africa was Mothocya longicopa Bruce, 1986. Recently, another two species have been added to this list. Mothocya andoni van der Wal, Smit, Bruce, Olaosebikan & Hadfield, 2021 and Mothocya powelli van der Wal, Smit, Bruce, Olaosebikan & Hadfield, 2021 were recorded for the first time from Nigerian brackish waters on Monodactylus sebae (Perciformes: Monodactylidae). Most cymothoids are distributed in marine environments, but several species have also been recorded from brackish and freshwater environments. In Africa, there are only two possible records of Cymothoidae in freshwater, thus making these records more noteworthy. Furthermore, Mothocya andoni from the Andoni River is tolerant of marine and brackish water (similar to its host) and M. powelli is from the Bonny River; both of which could potentially be useful in investigating the polluted waters in the Andoni and Bonny river systems.