Alona protzi is a rare species of Cladocera, occurring in lake littoral throughout Europe. However, little is known about this animal, and so far it has not been included in provisional lists of species found in Finland. In this short report we present our findings of Alona protzi, both recent and subfossil material, as well as one previous, unpublished finding site of the species in Finland. We found three subfossil shells of this species in the bottom sediments of two lakes. In a third lake we found intact animals, an ephippial female and a male, while sampling stony bottom of lake littoral.

This paper gives a description of the head shield of Alona protzi, a rare species of Cladocera (water fleas) whose separated head shield has not yet been described in detail. Subfossil head shields of A. protzi were found in sediment cores taken from lakes in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Poland. Despite the rarity of the species this suggests a wide distribution of A. protzi in northern Europe. The ecology of A. protzi is poorly known. The environmental spectrum of the finding sites was wide and ranged from relatively nutrient poor clear water lakes to eutrophic turbid water lakes, indicating that A. protzi is not narrowly restricted. Most of the lakes were, however, meso-eutrophic with neutral to high pH, and with a relatively low abundance of submerged macrophytes. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that A. protzi mainly lives in groundwater and is only occasionally transported into lakes.