Caligus lobodes (Wilson, 1911)

Boxshall, Geoffrey A. & Bernot, James P., 2023, Resolving taxonomic and nomenclatural problems in the genus Caligus O. F. Müller, 1785 (Copepoda: Caligidae), Zootaxa 5360 (4), pp. 545-567 : 559-560

Caligus cornutus Heegaard, 1962 and

Caligus lobodes (Wilson, 1911)

As Pillai (1966) highlighted, the male and the female of C. cornutus described and illustrated by Heegaard (1962) are not conspecific. The male described by Heegaard (1962) is readily identifiable as the male of Caligus lobodes (Wilson, 1911) ( Kirtisinghe, 1964 as Midias lobodes ; Pillai, 1966 as M. lobodes ; Boxshall, 2018 as C. lobodes ). The female of C. cornutus was considered to be an immature specimen by Heegaard (1962) and all the appendages illustrated in his species description were those of the male. The dorsal habitus view currently represents the only data available on the female. Boxshall (2018) concurred that the male described as C. cornutus was a misidentified male of C. lobodes but he erroneously assumed that the female was the designated holotype and thus maintained the name C. cornutus Heegaard, 1962 as valid, based on the female. However, Heegaard (1962) in his record of specimens states “ 1 male and 1 juvenile female, holotype and allotype, on Sphyraena ….” and we interpret this as confirmation that the male is the holotype.

Caligus cornutus Heegaard, 1962 can therefore be formally treated as a junior subjective synonym of Caligus lobodes (Wilson, 1911) because the name C. cornutus belongs with the male holotype. The female specimen collected by Heegaard (1962) is currently unidentified and, since a single habitus drawing provides too little information upon which to make a reliable identification, we propose to leave it unidentified.