A new species of benthopelagic copepod of the genus Tharybis (Calanoida: Tharybidae) from the upper slope, north-eastern New Zealand

A new species of benthopelagic calanoid Copepoda is described from off North Cape, New Zealand. The species, Tharybis inaequalis n. sp. (Family: Tharybidae), is the first record of this genus from New Zealand. T. inaequalis females are distinguished from all other described Tharybis by the asymmetrical fifth legs (long and thin on the left and short and squat on the right) with a pair of subequal outer terminal spines and an inner articulated terminal spine that is about 1.5 times the length of the outer spines. Males are most like those of T compacta and T minor but the inner lobe on right leg 5 segment 3 is small and rounded and entirely directed into the midline; the left leg 5 exopod segment 3 also has several distal lamellae and in inner proximal spine. As in T minor, male antennule segments XXII and XXIII are separate on the left and fused on the right.