| Caves are natural laboratories to investigate evolutionary processes in the ocean. In contrast to the many described lineages of cave exclusive crustaceans and annelids, very little is known about cave scalidophorans. We here describe two new species of kinorhynchs from a lava tube in the Canary Islands and a cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula. Leiocanthus bretti sp. nov., from Tenerife, is mainly characterized by the lack of middorsal structure specializations on all trunk segment, middorsal line covered by hairs on segments 3-9, unpaired paradorsal setae on segments 2–9, middorsal seta on segment 10, and laterodorsal setae on segments 2–9 and 11. Pycnophyes kukulkan sp. nov. from Yucatan is defined by the strong denticulation in the tergal anterior margin,... |
