Echiniscus quitensis Pilato, 2007

Kaczmarek, Łukasz, Michalczyk, Łukasz & Mcinnes, Sandra J., 2015, Annotated zoogeography of non-marine Tardigrada. Part II: South America, Zootaxa 3923 (1), pp. 1-107 : 20

41. Echiniscus quitensis Pilato, 2007 [T]

Echiniscus quitensis sp. n. (Pilato 2007)

Terra typica: Ecuador (South America)

Ecuador:

• 00°22′N, 78°08′W; 2,200 m asl: Imbabura Province, Ibarra. Pilato (2007)

• 00°13′S, 78°31′W; 2,900 m asl: Type Locality: Pichincha Province, Quito. Pilato (2007)

• 00°20′S, 78°12′W; 4,100 m asl: Napo Province, Papallacta, Paso de la Virgen. Pilato (2007)

Record numbers: Ecuador: 3; total: 3.

Remarks: Endemic species known only from Ecuador. Pilato (2007) described E. quitensis from an unreported group of slides in the Maucci collection labelled, “ E. rufoviridis ”. E. quitensis belongs to the viridis group and could easily be misidentified with other members of the group (Pilato et al. 2007). Moreover, there are three other species from the viridis group ( E. rufoviridis and E. viridis and E. viridissimus ) also known from South America, so we suggest that specimens from this group should be examined very carefully (see also comments to E. viridis below).