European Ocean Biodiversity Information System

The taxonomy of the mysid fauna in the Western Indian Ocean described in this work gives an idea of the knowledge concerning these animals built up during the last two centuries. This work only deals with the shallow-water species of the region. This term includes the group of shallow, neretic, coastal, littoral and estuarine species and does not include the oceanic species in offshore deep epi-, meso- and bathypelagic environment. The overview given is completely based on the original information found in the articles that were added to the database Mysidlan. The information found in the original publications was then compared with the preliminary work already done by Prof. Tris Wooldridge & Dr Jan Mees. The work itself starts with some information on classification. The second part gives a dichotomous key for the 31 genera of the region. The third and biggest part shows an overview of the information on the Mysid fauna of the Western Indian Ocean. For each genus the distribution is mapped, and a species list and a literature list is given. For most of the genera also a key to the species is included. The geographical part does not give the precise locations of the places where the species were found but only subregions. A detailed description of these subregions is given in the ‘Manual for Mysidlan’. More information on the species can be found in the database Mysidlan itself.