Background: This report represents the first record of the sharpnose sevengill shark Heptranchias perlo in Guatemala’s Caribbean Sea. Methods: Two H. perlo specimens were captured by artisanal fishermen of the coastal community, El Quetzalito. All specimens were captured with a trammel net, in waters of 200 m depth Results: Both specimens were female with total lengths of 280 and 370 mm. Detail...

We here address placozoan distribution and phylogeography in five locations in the Caribbean Sea. We performed a coarse-resolution presence/absence survey of placozoans in Belize, Bermuda, Grenada, Jamaica, and Panama and a fine-resolution study of the distribution of placozoans in Twin Cays, Belize. Placozoans were recovered in every country sampled. Animals were sequenced at the mitochondrial...

The 1867 Virgin Island Tsunami reached large magnitude on the coasts of the Caribbean Islands. A maximum tsunami height of 10 m was reported for two coastal locations (Deshaies and Sainte-Rose) in Guadeloupe. Modelling of the 1867 tsunami is performed in the framework of the nonlinear shallow-water theory. The directivity of the tsunami wave source in the Caribbean Sea according to the assumed ...

During a survey of the zooplankton community of Bahía Amuay, Venezuelan Caribbean, specimens of an undescribed species of Caligus Müller were collected. It resembles Caligus xystercus Cressey and Caligus ocyurus Cressey, both known only from the Caribbean Sea. The new species can be distinguished from these and other congeners by a combination of characters including the armature of legs 1 and ...

Nereis garwoodi n. sp. is described on the basis of eight syntype specimens (six atokous and two heteronereis) collected in Bahía Chetumal, Mexican Caribbean coast, and the variability in the paragnath numbers in the pharynx is established using 180 specimens; paragnath numbers are I:10(SD = 1.9); II:30 (SD = 2.6); III:41 (SD = 5.2); IV:29 (SD = 3.5), V:1, VI:4, VII-VIII: > 30. Its eyes are big...

Jamaica is an island nation located almost at the center of the Caribbean Sea, approximately 150 km south of Cuba and 160 km west of Haiti, its two nearest neighboring countries. It is the third largest island of the Caribbean and the largest of the English-speaking ones. Its surface area is 11,424 km2,1 and it has a population of approximately 2.7 million. It is dependent on tourism,which cont...

BACKGROUND Climate warming is causing environmental change making both marine and terrestrial organisms, and even humans, more susceptible to emerging diseases. Coral reefs are among the most impacted ecosystems by climate stress, and immunity of corals, the most ancient of metazoans, is poorly known. Although coral mortality due to infectious diseases and temperature-related stress is on the r...

Siphonophores are one of the least known gelatinous zooplankters in the tropical waters of the Northwestern Atlantic. Most of the regional knowledge about their diversity and distribution is based on surface samples (0–200 m). Siphonophores were collected from oceanic waters off the Mexican Caribbean across an expanded sampling range (0–940 m) during two cruises and were taxonomically examined....

[1] October–November Caribbean hurricane activity can have profound impacts on the region through loss of life and devastation of property. Large‐scale climate parameters associated with active late seasons in the Caribbean are investigated in this paper. Among the primary features that are noted are atmospheric and oceanic conditions typical of La Niña and a larger‐than‐normal Atlantic Warm Po...

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: The coral Montastrea cavernosa (Linnaeus). Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Robertson, D. R. Sexual patterns in the labroid fishes of the Western Caribbean, II, the parrotfishes (Scaridae). (Smithsonian contri...