Clausiidae Giesbrecht, 1895

Kim, Il-Hoi, Sikorski, Andrey, O’Reilly, Myles & Boxshall, Geoff A., 2013, Copepods associated with polychaete worms in European seas, Zootaxa 3651 (1), pp. 1-62 : 6-8

Family Clausiidae Giesbrecht, 1895

Boxshall & Halsey (2004) listed 8 genera and 19 species within the Clausiidae , but also noted another four genera inquirenda which might belong in this family. Bjørnberg & Radashevsky (2009) subsequently established a new genus, Spionicola Bjørnberg & Radashevsky, 2009 , to accommodate a new species Spionicola mustacia Bjørnberg & Radashevsky, 2009 , parasitic on the spionid Dipolydora armata (Langerhans, 1880) . Most clausiids are external associates of maldanid and spionid worms, although some species have been recorded in washings of other invertebrate groups, such as sponges ( Bocquet & Stock, 1963). Boxshall & Halsey (2004) considered it possible that such records could be based on copepod individuals that had been dislodged from their polychaete hosts during collection, or were associated with polychaetes inhabiting the sponges.

Genus Clausia Claparède, 1863