Tonight, I finally got around to cropping and examining the photo. And it's no copepod that I recognize.
Speck with eyelashes |
For one thing, it has two eyes. The shape is right, but the tail is different. A female copepod often carries eggs at the rear, but in two fat sacks, not 4 pointed, hairy ones.
It doesn't look like an amphipod, either; an amphipod usually holds the antennae forward, not off to the sides. It almost always has long hind legs sticking out at odd angles from the back; when the tail end is curved inward, from a front view, it would be nicely rounded, with those legs well out to the side. The eyes are too small.
I've spent hours looking for one like it.
I give up.
Help! What is this?
Micro-Lobster?
ReplyDeleteCheck out the drawing at the end of this article.
Annie D
ReplyDeleteMicro-Lobster?
Check out the drawing at the end of the article.
http://www.fukubonsai.com/M-L2c.html
Annie D
Hi Susannah, It's a tiny isopod. My first guess would be family Cirolanidae, but it may also be in the Idoteidae (one of the valviferan families). There, that's pretty much all I remember of isopod taxonomy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Hugh. Now I can recognize the shape. (Once I've been told what it is. Funny how that sharpens my eyes!)
ReplyDeleteI googled Cirolanidae images, and found the Excirolana chitoni which looks very similar and is found from California to Washington. But they're quite a bit bigger, up to 1.5 cm. Maybe this is a youngster, though.