Halolaelaps celticus Halbert, 1915

Halolaelaps celticus Halbert, 1915

A North Atlantic species penetrating into Arctic waters up to the Pechora Sea in the east (new records from the shores of the Kola Peninsula, Kanin Peninsula, and Dolgiy Island; O.L.M.: personal observations). Due to the significant variations in “diagnostic” characteristics of females of this and related species ( Błaszak and Ehrnsberger 1998 ; Maslov 2013 ; O.L.M.: personal observations), only records accompanied by the presence of males can be considered reliable. The records of H. celticus from the shores of the Black and Azov seas ( Bregetova

1977; Koyumdzhijeva 1982 ; Maslov 2013 ; Bizin and Makarova 2022) seem to actually concern H. orientalis Ishikawa, 1979 (? = Halolaelaps schusteri Hirschmann, 1966 ; see below) and require verification. The proper Halolaelaps celticus is abundant in the early and middle stages of marine debris decay ( Strenzke 1963 ; Makarova and Petrova-Nikitina 2008). This species withstands flooding with seawater within an algal mass for at least 5 days (O.L.M.: personal observations). This can provide its passive dispersal, although phoresy on Amphipoda has been repeatedly shown for other littoral species of the genus ( Willmann 1952 ; Evans and Till 1979 ; Pugh et al. 1997 ; Trach 2016).