The first freshwater species from the US Virgin Islands (USVI) was described 190 years ago, but research on inland aquatic animals, particularly invertebrates, remains limited. Due to a complex history of European colonization in the Caribbean, natural history writings about inland aquatic diversity for the USVI began almost 250 years later than those from elsewhere. Those early writings were produced primarily by clergy and largely recorded indigenous knowledge from other islands. Proposed in the first natural history by West in 1793, and reinforced later by Ledru in 1810, an assumption emerged that Puerto Rico and USVI faunas were almost identical. This partially explains the paucity of work in almost all aquatic faunal groups but birds. We review the history of inland aquatic faunal observations and studies in the USVI, from pre-Columbian traditions to recent faunal assessments. We discuss the pivotal Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands and the importance of local and foreign naturalists and taxonomists for our understanding of aquatic biota. Since 1900, 155 articles included observations on USVI inland aquatic animals, without clear trends toward increased or decreased publication output since the 1960s. Taxonomic bias toward studies on insects and birds, and geographic bias toward vertebrate work from St. Croix, are evident. Descriptive articles overwhelmingly outnumber manipulative ones. Despite overlap between USVI and Puerto Rican inland aquatic vertebrate faunas, recent surveys from St. Thomas have documented many new records and undescribed aquatic invertebrates. The historical assumption that the two faunas are equivalent appears to depend on taxonomic context. This hypothesis requires further evaluation.

来自美属维尔京群岛 (USVI) 的第一个淡水物种于 190 年前被描述，但对内陆水生动物，特别是无脊椎动物的研究仍然有限。由于欧洲在加勒比地区殖民的复杂历史，关于 USVI 内陆水生多样性的自然历史著作开始于比其他地方晚近 250 年。这些早期著作主要由神职人员撰写，主要记录了来自其他岛屿的土著知识。韦斯特在 1793 年的第一部自然史中提出，后来在 1810 年由勒德鲁强化，假设出现了波多黎各和 USVI 的动物群几乎相同的假设。这部分解释了除了鸟类之外几乎所有水生动物群都缺乏工作。我们回顾了 USVI 内陆水生动物观察和研究的历史，从前哥伦布时期的传统到最近的动物群评估。我们讨论关键 波尔多黎各和维尔京群岛的科学调查以及本地和外国自然学家和分类学家对我们了解水生生物群的重要性。自 1900 年以来，有 155 篇文章包括对 USVI 内陆水生动物的观察，但自 1960 年代以来没有明确的出版物产量增加或减少趋势。对昆虫和鸟类研究的分类偏见以及对圣克罗伊脊椎动物研究的地理偏见是显而易见的。描述性文章的数量压倒性地超过了操纵性文章。尽管 USVI 和波多黎各内陆水生脊椎动物群之间存在重叠，但圣托马斯最近的调查记录了许多新记录和未描述的水生无脊椎动物。两种动物群等价的历史假设似乎取决于分类背景。这一假设需要进一步评估。