The Caridean Crustacea of the Canary Islands

The present paper is based mainly on material collected at the Canary Islands during the spring of 1947 by Dr. G. Thorson of Universitetets Zoologiske Museum at Copenhagen and Dr. C. O. van Regteren Altena of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie at Leiden. Most of the specimens were collected by Dr. Thorson, who devoted almost all of his time to the study of the litoral fauna, while Dr. Van Regteren Altena studied the inland fauna and only made occasional visits to the sea shore. The shrimp fauna of the Canary Islands is very poorly known. In 1839 Erulle, in the large work of Webb and Berthelot on the Natural History of the Canary Islands, listed 5 species of Caridea and since that time just two more species have been added to the list. The material collected by Dr. Thorson and Dr. Van Regteren Altena consists of 12 species, 9 of which have not been recorded previously from the Canary Islands, bringing the total number of Caridean species known from that archipelago up to 16. As the very few data about the carcinological fauna of the region are scattered over several publications, I thought it useful to give here a compilation of all the information about the Canary Islands Caridea known to me. The deep-sea forms, which are collected some distance off the islands are not included. One of the main reasons that the shrimps of the Canary Islands are so little known probably is the inaccessibility of the larger part of the shores, which makes collecting possible only at certain places and at certain times. In most places the rocky shore rises steep and high from the sea and is heavily pounded by the surf. Only at a few localities there are small protected beaches, where some collecting may be done.