Abstract

Eucalanus inermis Giesbrecht, 1893 is an abundant species of the Humboldt Current and recognized as one of the large-sized herbivorous copepods in the pelagic realm of the eastern South Pacific. However, lack of information on morphological and taxonomic characters of early stages of this species is a major shortcoming to identify them from field samples, and therefore it limits the possibility of studying its populations and assessing its ecological role in the pelagic food web of the Humboldt Current. In this work, a full description of the naupliar stages of this species is made for the first time. Thus, we provide a basic tool to assist future studies on the population dynamics of the species. © Koninklijke Brill NV, 2006.