Cirolana Leach, 1818

Sidabalok, Conni M. & Bruce, Niel L., 2016, Redescription of three cirolanid isopods (Crustacea: Peracarida) from Indonesia, Zootaxa 4114 (3), pp. 277-290 : 278

Genus Cirolana Leach, 1818

Restricted synonymy. Bruce 1986: 139.— Kensley & Schotte 1989: 132.— Brusca et al. 1995: 17.— Schotte & Kensley 2005: 1218.

Type species. Cirolana cranchii Leach, 1818 ; by monotypy (see Bruce & Ellis 1983).

Diagnosis. Diagnoses to Cirolana have been provided by Bruce (1986), Kensley & Schotte (1989), Brusca et al. (1995) and Schotte & Kensley (2005).

Remarks. Cirolana is the largest genus within the Cirolanidae with 128 species known to date ( Schotte et al. 2008 onwards). New species have been and are being added over time (e.g. Schotte & Kensley 2005; Khalaji-Pirbalouty & Wägele 2011; Rodcharoen et al. 2014, in press) with 15 species described since 2005. Bruce (1986) proposed three species groups of Cirolana based on morphological similarities: the ‘ Cirolana parva group’, the ‘ Cirolana tuberculate group’ and the ‘ Cirolana southern group’, but many species remain unplaced (e.g. see Keable 2001). Furthermore, the relationship between species in those groups has not been tested using phylogenetic methods and it has been suggested that Cirolana is a paraphyletic genus ( Moore & Brusca 2003, Riseman & Brusca 2002). Bruce (2004) gave a detailed diagnosis to the ‘ Cirolana parva group’.

Cirolana is a predominantly marine genus with most species recorded from the intertidal to a depth of 200 metres, with a few species to 1200 metres (e.g. Cirolana vanhoeffeni Nierstrasz 1931 ). Bruce (1986) and Brusca et al. (1995) reviewed the genus and provided species lists.