Subterranean Fishes of the World

4247

2005

Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia

167-176

88

North-west Western Australia appears to contain one of the world’s more diverse subterranean faunas and this paper summarises published literature about stygofauna of the Pilbara region, within north-west Western Australia. To date, 332 occurrences of 78 species from approximately 223 sites have been recorded. The stygofaunal species occur in an array of different groundwater environments including porous, karstic and fractured-rock aquifers, springs and hyporheic habitats. Sampling coverage has been highly skewed in terms of areal coverage and the different types of groundwater environments represented – 96 % of sampled sites are bores or wells, while springs and hyporheic habitats have rarely been sampled. The higher-level systematic diversity of the region is quite comprehensive in global terms, but the species-level taxonomy of most groups is still incomplete. There appears to be significant regional endemism in the Pilbara stygofauna, including some relict freshwater lineages. Karstic aquifers, karst springs and porous alluvial aquifers contain high species richness. This review confirms that the Pilbara is an important region for subterranean biodiversity.

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