Typhlocaris ayyaloni

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Typhlocaris ayyaloni
Typhlocaris ayyaloni

Typhlocaris ayyaloni

Systematics
Order : Decapods (decapoda)
Subordination : Pleocyemata
Partial order : Caridea
Family : Typhlocarididae
Genre : Typhlocaris
Type : Typhlocaris ayyaloni
Scientific name
Typhlocaris ayyaloni
Tsurnamal , 2008

Typhlocaris ayyaloni is aspecies of decapod shrimp endemic to the Ajalon Cave in Israel. It is the fourth species of thegenus Typhlocaris established by William Thomas Calman in1909, which includes blind cave crabs from various Mediterranean countries.

discovery

In March 2006, the Ajalon Cave was discovered in Israel . It is a karst cave and is located in a limestone quarry near the city of Ramla , about 24 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea, with a depth of about 100 meters that almost reaches the water table. About 200 meters from the cave entrance there is an underground cave lake in a hall, in which different types of crustaceans live. Typhlocaris ayyaloni is the largest species among them and occurs in hundreds in the cave lake.

description

Typhlocaris ayyaloni is a blind cancer of translucent white color with a length of up to 48 mm with a length of the carapace of up to 16 mm. Most of the crustaceans observed in the cave lake were 20 to 27 mm in length, although even small animals of 21 mm in length had fully developed sexual organs and were apparently fully grown.

Since no egg-bearing females or young animals shorter than 12 mm were found, it is assumed that the cave lake only serves as a feeding place and that reproduction takes place in more suitable places. Only previously undiscovered cavities could be considered for this. Freshly skinned specimens reveal the internal organs, older individuals are colored white and often covered with a yellowish film, possibly formed by bacteria, so that they appear pale yellow.

In the cave, individual specimens of Typhlocaris ayyaloni could be observed as they rose to the surface of the water and turned on their backs. Such behavior had never been observed in the closely related species Typhlocaris galilea . This behavior was interpreted as feed intake, another attempt to explain it sees it as oxygen intake at the water surface. An examination of the intestinal contents of two specimens showed that they ate directly on the bacterial lawn and smaller crustaceans of the species Tethysbaena ophelicola . In the laboratory, Typhlocaris ayyaloni proved to be insensitive to light stimuli, but reacted very sensitively to vibrations and movements in their environment and showed escape and defense reactions.

Systematics

The genus Typhlocaris is in the family Typhlocarididae within the suborder Caridea of the decapods . It includes four species of cave crabs with localities in Israel, Libya and Italy. The first Israeli species Typhlocaris galilea was discovered on the shores of the Sea of ​​Galilee in the early 20th century . For the scientific identification of the crabs found in the Ajalon Cave, 18 specimens with total lengths of 12 to 48 mm were captured and examined in the laboratory of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .

The holotype is a male animal captured on May 24, 2006 with a total length of 36.8 mm and a carapace length of 12.7 mm. There is also a female allotype and 16 paratypes, all caught between March and July 2006 in the Ajalon cave. The type specimens are kept in the collection of the Institute for Invertebrates of the Hebrew University, the holotype has the inventory number HUJINVDEC 381, the allotype the number HUJINVDEC 384.

The species name ayyaloni is derived from the Ajalon cave as a type locality . This in turn lies in the valley of Ajalon, already mentioned in the Old Testament ( Jos 10,12  EU ).

ecology

Ajalon cave, hall with the cave lake

Until it was uncovered, the Ajalon Cave formed an ecosystem that was closed off from the outside world , into which neither water nor organic material could penetrate from the surface because of a layer of limestone above it that was tens of meters thick. In addition to a number of passages, the cave consists of a large chamber with a lake in which there is salty groundwater with a high concentration of hydrogen sulfide . The Ajalon Cave's ecosystem is based on the biomass produced by large quantities of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria . In addition to Typhlocaris ayyaloni, cave animals found populations of other crustaceans , pseudoscorpions , fish and springtails , as well as about thirty empty shells of the scorpion Akrav israchanani .

The Ajalon cave is located in the area of ​​the Yarkon Taninim aquifer . The site of Typhlocaris galilea than the second endemic in Israel kind from the kind Typhlocaris , located more than 120 kilometers from the shore of the Sea of Galilee . The water systems of the localities are not interconnected.

In the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN , the species Typhlocaris ayyaloni is classified as " Endangered (EN) " ("Endangered"). The classification is justified with the small number of sites and the observed deterioration of the habitat .

literature

  • Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel . In: Crustaceana , Volume 81, Number 4, pp. 487-501, doi : 10.1163 / 156854008783797534 .

Web links

Commons : Typhlocaris ayyaloni  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , pp 487-488.
  2. ↑ a b c d B. PM Ćurčić: Ayyalonia dimentmani ng, n. Sp. (Ayyaloniini n. Trib., Chthoniidae, Pseudoscorpiones) from a cave in Israel . In: Archives of Biological Sciences , Volume 60, Number 3, pp. 331-339, here p. 332, doi : 10.2298 / ABS0803331C .
  3. ↑ a b c d Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , p. 498.
  4. ↑ a b c d Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , p. 490.
  5. ↑ a b Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , S. 499th
  6. ↑ Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , S. 500th
  7. ↑ a b c d Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , p. 497.
  8. ^ Francis Dov Por et al .: Animal life in the chemoautotrophic ecosystem of the hypogenic groundwater cave of Ayyalon (Israel): A summing up . In: Natural Science , Volume 5, Number 4A, 2013, pp. 7-13, here p. 10, doi : 10.4236 / ns.2013.54A002 .
  9. ↑ Moshe Tsurnamal: A new species of the stygobiotic blind prawn Typhlocaris Calman, 1909 (Decapoda, Palaemonidae, Typhlocaridinae) from Israel , pp 498-499.
  10. ^ Gershom Levy: The first troglobite scorpion from Israel and a new chactoid family (Arachnida: Scorpiones) . In: Zoology in the Middle East , Volume 40, Number 1, 2007, pp. 91-96, here p. 91, doi : 10.1080 / 09397140.2007.10638209 .
  11. ↑ Typhlocaris ayyaloni in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Posted by: De Grave, S., 2012. Retrieved March 9, 2014.