September 2 2020
A new species of Caribbean “clam shrimp” has been discovered at an unlikely place: the water hazards of the Herman E. Moore Golf Course at the University of the Virgin Islands’ (UVI) St. Thomas Campus. In an article published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Zoological Studies, Drs. D. Christopher Rogers from the University of Kansas and Edwin Cruz-Rivera from UVI’s Department of Biological Sciences write about their unexpected discovery. After comparing their specimens from UVI to other similar animals from museum collections, the researchers settled on the scientific name Eulimnadia insularis, which literally means “pleasant pond goddess from an island.” The finding underscores how much of the biodiversity in the Caribbean has yet to be discovered, even for areas that humans have been using for a long time.
