Philippe Jouk

• Ph. D.
• Curator Aquarium, Reptiles & Marine Mammals at Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

Meiofauna are frequently overlooked in biodiversity assessments, resulting in a lack of understanding regarding their current status, the potential impact of anthropogenic activities, and climate change. This study on the intertidal zone of the Small Beach of Ostend marks a new effort to characterize meiofaunal communities along the Belgian coast....

Meiofauna are frequently overlooked in biodiversity assessments, resulting in a lack of understanding regarding their current status, the potential impact of anthropogenic activities, and climate change. This study on the intertidal zone of the Small Beach of Ostend marks a new effort to characterize meiofaunal communities along the Belgian coast....

The European Union of Aquarium Curators (EUAC) boasts a membership of 150 dedicated individuals, standing as a vital cornerstone within the European public aquarium community. Since 2004, the EUAC Conservation Fund has granted over a quarter of a million euros to approximately 50 conservation projects spanning the globe. These initiatives, diverse...

The European Union of Aquarium Curators (EUAC) includes 150 members and is an important association for the European public aquarium community. Since 2004, over one quarter of a million euros were awarded by the EUAC Conservation Fund to approximately 50 projects, which spanned across the globe. While projects varied greatly in content and scope, s...

We describe a new genus of dalytyphloplanid rhabdocoels, with seven new species. Orostylis gen. nov. has a unique combination of characters including the presence of a sclerotised stylet, an anteriorly positioned male copulatory organ with the male genital pore in the buccal cavity, and the absence of an oviduct. The ovary empties directly into the...

The taxon Koinocystididae is the third most species-rich family within Eukalyptorhynchia. However, its diversity and phylogeny have been largely neglected in former studies. We introduce three new genera and twelve new species of Koinocystididae including Simplexcystis asymmetrica gen. n. sp. n., Galapagetula cubensis sp. n., eight species of Reinh...

Coelogynopora schockaerti n. sp. (Proseriata: Coelogynoporidae) is described from the northwestern Gulf of Lion, Mediterranean. Only a few representatives of this genus are reported from Mediterranean marine sandy shores and only from the northwestern to central Mediterranean, but all of these species also occur outside the Mediterranean. So far, C...

An overview is given of all representatives of the genus Typhlopolycystis Karling, 1956: the five known species (T. coeca Karling, 1956; T. mediterranea Brunet, 1965; T. coomansi Schockaert and Karling, 1975; T. schockaerti Karling, 1978 and T. rubra Noldt and Reise, 1985) and eleven new species: T. microphthalma n. sp. from S. France, T. fonsecai...

The long snout of pipefishes and seahorses (Syngnathidae, Gasterosteiformes) is formed as an elongation of the ethmoid region. This is in contrast to many other teleosts with elongate snouts (e.g., butterflyfishes) in which the snout is formed as an extension of the jaws. Syngnathid fishes perform very fast suction feeding, accomplished by powerful...

Cirrifera genitoductus sp.n. (Platyhelminthes, Proseriata, Coelogynoporidae) is described from sandy beaches at the Belgian and Northern French coasts. The species is characterised by a cirrus with small spines, all of the same size, a prostate vesi- cle far behind the copulatory bulb, a long genito-intestinal duct and a pair of large gland complex...

We report the isolation and characterization of 15 (12 di-, 1 tri- and 2 tetranucleotide) microsatellite markers from Hippocampus capensis, the Knysna seahorse. This marker set allows the detection of a genetic bottleneck as shown in a captive population. Furthermore, we test their genotyping potential in eight other seahorse taxa.

Ten sandy beaches at the Belgian coast were sampled monthly on a qualitative basis. Six of them were also sampled quantitatively every two months. In total, 130 species were encountered, 38 % of them occur only in I or 2 localities, 32 % have a more general distribution (in 3 to 7 localities) and 30 % are found in at least 8 localities. Schizo- rhy...

A list of thirty seven species of marine gastrotrichs is given, together with their occurrences at seven collection sites along the Belgian coast. Of these, twenty three species belong to the order Macrodasyida and the other fourteen to the order Chaetonotida. Twenty species were recorded only from the three sublittoral sites and four species from...

Sandy sediments and algae from the littoral and sublittoral zone of the coast near Mombasa were sampled. Eighteen species of Kalyptorhynchia were collected, of which four new species of Schizorhynchia are described here, two Cheliplana species, one Baltoplana sp. and one Carcharodorhynchus sp. Cheliplana asica terminalis Brunet 1968 described from...

Studies of the horizontal distribution of the Plathelminthes in sandy beaches have up to now mainly been carried out on the German island of Sylt where the beaches consist of a steep "Prallhang" and a flat wadden area. Beaches of the Belgian coast are very flat, only gently sloping and with a different sediment compared to the Sylt beaches. This st...

Cirrifera sopottehlersae sp. n. (Proseriata, Lithophora, Coelogynoporidae) is described from marine sediments of the Belgian and German North Sea coast. The species is characterized by a cirrus which in addition to short, bent spines is armed with 4 or 6 large ax-shaped spines.