Pleurodasys helgolandicus Remane, 1927

Chatterjee, Tapas, Priyalakshmi, Geetha & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2019, An annotated checklist of the macrodasyidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 4545 (4), pp. 495-510 : 497

Pleurodasys helgolandicus Remane, 1927

= Pleurodasys megasoma Boaden, 1963

Records from India. KERALA: Fort Kochi (Cochin), Karunagapally—Govindankutty & Nair (1969, 1972) as Pleurodasys megasoma ; GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Marine, intertidal, subtidal; fine and medium grained sediment, less frequently in intertidal zone, more widespread in submersed sand.

Distribution. North Sea; Mediterranean Sea; India (Arabian Sea).

Remarks. The Indian specimens are reported to bear a pair extraordinary organs ("lateral feet" of Naidu and Rao), each comprised of three adhesive tubes, while in the European specimens, these organs are composed of four tubes ( Marotta et al., 2008). This difference, and the geographic distance from the type locality, call for a better morphological comparison between Indian and European populations. Ideally, such comparisons should also include genetic data as well as specimens from conspecifics, e.g., P. incomptus Todaro, Dal Zotto, Bownes & Perissinotto, 2017 described from South Africa (see Todaro et al. 2017). We note positively that for some of the Indian populations information on seasonal dynamics are available ( Govindankutty & Nair 1972). This type of information is much needed but rarely available for gastrotrich species.