''Acantholochus'' is a genus of

parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has c ...

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

s belonging to the family

Bomolochidae Bomolochidae is a family (biology), family of copepods parasitic on marine fishes. Most species parasitize the gills of fish, but some species live in the nostrils or on the eyes of their hosts. The family contains just over 150 species from the ...

. Its members can only be distinguished from the closely related genus ''

Hamaticolax ''Hamaticolax'' is a genus of parasitic copepods belonging to the family Bomolochidae. Its members can only be distinguished from the closely related genus ''Acantholochus'' by the presence of an accessory process on the claw of the maxillipeds. ...

'' by the absence of an accessory process on the claw of the maxillipeds.

Species

It includes the following

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

: The following species were formerly included in ''Acantholochus'' but are now placed in ''Hamaticolax'': *''Hamaticolax galeichthyos'' (

Luque Luque () is a city in Central Department of Paraguay, part of the Gran Asunción metropolitan area. Both 1635 and 1750 have been recorded as dates of its founding. It was temporarily the capital of Paraguay in 1868 during the Paraguayan War be ...

& Bruno, 1990) *''Hamaticolax paralabracis'' (Luque & Bruno, 1990) *''Hamaticolax unisagittatus'' (Tavares & Luque, 2003)

References

Poecilostomatoida {{copepod-stub