AEGISTHIDAE Giesbrecht 1892

(syn.Cerviniidae Sars M., 1903)

"The Aegisthinae is traditionally regarded as one of the three exclusively holoplanktonic families within the Harpacticoida. In contrast to the other families, Miraciidae and Clytemnestridae (now Peltidiidae), which primarily occur in the epipelagic zones of the oceans, aegisthids are typically mesopelagic or even bathypelagic. The recent discovery of a new primitive genus Andromastax Conroy-Dalton & Huys from hydrothermal vent sites at the Galapagos Rift raised the suspicion that the subfamily might also be distributed in the hyperbenthic environment (Conroy-Dalton & Huys, 1999). The latter, together with anchihaline caves and hydrothermal vents (and cold seeps) was recognized by Huys & Boxshall (1991) as one of the key habitats on the Earth’s surface in our continuous search for copepods of high phylogenetic significance.

In response to the limited accessibility of these habitats, a number of sophisticated sampling techniques and sampling gear has been developed in recent years. For example, the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) invested much effort in the design of suitable methods for sampling the benthopelagic organisms which inhabit the water overlying hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. Initially, benthopelagic sampling was performed by newly designed nets attached to the deep-sea submersible Shinkai 2000 (Kikuchi et al., 1990) but this method showed serious limitations in the quantitative estimation of benthopelagic plankton. This led to the alternative solution of attaching sampling gear to the highly successful Deep Tow System of JAMSTEC.

The design of a multiple opening and closing plankton sampler (DT-MPS) by modification of Terazaki’s (1991) vertical multiple plankton sampler (ORI-VMPS) allowed benthopelagic sampling at a distance of 0.5 to 3m above the bottom. Using this sampling gear hyperbenthic copepods were collected in the cold seep area southeast off Hatsushima Island (Toda et al., 1995) and around the hydrothermal vent fields in the Okinawa ." [from: W. LEE & R. HUYS (2000)

AEGISTHUS Giesbrecht 1891 (syn. Hensenella Dahl, 1895 )