Gnathia micheli, Ortiz, Manuel, Winfield, Ignacio & Varela, Carlos, 2012

Ortiz, Manuel, Winfield, Ignacio & Varela, Carlos, 2012, First records of peracarid crustaceans from the Cayo Matias Ocean Blue Hole, SW Cuba, with the description of two new species, Zootaxa 3505, pp. 53-66 : 54

Gnathiidae Leach, 1814

The isopods of the family Gnathiidae constitute a polymorphic group. They are fish parasites during their larval stages. The adult males and females stop feeding and generally live in sponges, coral rubble and sediment, in contrast with the praniza larvae that forms part of the marine plankton ( Kensley & Schotte 1989; Svavarsson 2006). Since the classic monograph of the group by Monod (1926), only Cohen and Poore (1994) have published an exhaustive revision of these crustaceans, with 10 valid genera. Up to date, 12 genera have been described for the family Gnathiidae ( Schotte et al. 2012) .

The genera Bythognathia , Caecognathia and Gnathia have been documented from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea ( Camp 1988; Schotte et al. 2009). Gnathia is the only gnathiid genus recorded from Cuba with the following four species: G. maxillaris (Montagu, 1804) , G. virginalis, Monod, 1926 , G. puertoricensis Menzies and Glynn, 1968 and G. h e m i n g w a y i Ortiz and Lalana, 1997. The finding of Gnathia micheli n. sp. increases the number of species described for this Caribbean archipelago to five.