Zootaxa 4413 (3): 401–448 ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) http://www.mapress.com/j/zt/ Article ZOOTAXA Copyright © 2018 Magnolia Press ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4413.3.1 http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:2DF9255A-7C42-42DA-9F48-2BAA6DCEED7E Checklists of Crustacea Decapoda from the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, with an assessment of Macaronesian and Cape Verde biogeographic marine ecoregions JOSÉ A. GONZÁLEZ University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, i-UNAT, Campus de Tafira, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. E-mail:
[email protected]. ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8584-6731. Abstract The complete list of Canarian marine decapods (last update by González & Quiles 2003, popular book) currently com- prises 374 species/subspecies, grouped in 198 genera and 82 families; whereas the Cape Verdean marine decapods (now fully listed for the first time) are represented by 343 species/subspecies with 201 genera and 80 families. Due to changing environmental conditions, in the last decades many subtropical/tropical taxa have reached the coasts of the Canary Islands. Comparing the carcinofaunal composition and their biogeographic components between the Canary and Cape Verde ar- chipelagos would aid in: validating the appropriateness in separating both archipelagos into different ecoregions (Spalding et al. 2007), and understanding faunal movements between areas of benthic habitat. The consistency of both ecoregions is here compared and validated by assembling their decapod crustacean checklists, analysing their taxa composition, gath- ering their bathymetric data, and comparing their biogeographic patterns. Four main evidences (i.e. different taxa; diver- gent taxa composition; different composition of biogeographic patterns; different endemicity rates) support that separation, especially in coastal benthic decapods; and these parametres combined would be used as a valuable tool at comparing biotas from oceanic archipelagos.