Holoplanktonic gastropod mollusks in the Peruvian sea collected between 1994 and 2005

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to contribute to the knowledge of the biodiversity of holoplankton mollusks in the Peruvian sea. The material comes from 5,963 samples of zooplankton obtained in front of the Peruvian coast between 03°30’S and 18°20’S, which were obtained during the realization of 31 cruises and surveys carried out by the Instituto del Mar del Peru, between 1994 and 2005. The results reveal a total of 41 species: seventeen of the order Heteropoda, twenty-one of the order Thecosomata and three of the order Nudibranchia. In this work the description and distribution of each one of the determined species and the differential characters are presented.