Zooplankton plays key roles in structuring interactions in aquatic communities but often remain undescribed in many water systems. This paper reports seventeen species of the Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) from Laguna de Navío Quebrado, all of them new records for La Guajira Department, Colombia. The Cladocera assemblages include mostly the Neotropical taxa associated with vegetation. This paper also serves as the first compilation of the data on the Cladocera of this region and includes brief remarks, descriptions and illustrations of some species with additional notes on their distribution.
Cladocera; Colombia; distribution; Neotropics; species composition; taxonomy