Eulimnadia aethiopica Daday de Deés, 1926

Rabet, Nicolas, 2010, Revision of the egg morphology of Eulimnadia (Crustacea, Branchiopoda, Spinicaudata), Zoosystema 32 (3), pp. 373-391 : 376

Eulimnadia aethiopica Daday de Deés, 1926 ( Fig. 1 E-I)

Eulimnadia aethiopica Daday de Deés, 1926: 546 , fig. 137.

Limnadia aethiopica – Brtek 1997: 56.

TYPE LOCALITY. — Indicated by Daday de Deés (1926) as coming from Sudan. However, the collector designated the Kousseri area (Kousri in Daday de Deés and on the sample label), a town of the north-east of Cameroon, very near the Chad border, near N’djamena. It is impossible to say if the collection came from present Chad or Cameroon.

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — The Kousseri Area, Chari Tchad Mission (“Chari Soudanai, Kousri”), VIII.1903, J. Decorse,> 10 eggs (MNHN-Bp318).

RANGE. — Based on egg morphology, this species appears restricted to the type locality for the present, however see Remarks below.

EGG MORPHOLOGY

Spherical egg with approximately rectangular depressions randomly distributed at the egg surface. The bottom of the depressions is very narrow and linear, and the ridges separating them are narrow and relatively sharp ( Fig. 1H, I ). In detail, the egg surface is relatively smooth ( Fig. 1I ). Average egg diameter is 178.1 µm (n = 8, SD = 5.4 µm).

REMARKS

The original drawing and description of the egg, indicating “Ova membrana tuberculata, tuberculis utcunque coniformibus armata tecta”, is compatible with the eggs studied here. This species has a spherical rough egg which is widespread in the world and has already been reported from Sudan ( E.africana ( Brauer 1877)) , south of Africa (reported as E.africana by Barnard 1929), Arabia ( E.margaretae by Thiéry 1996), South America ( E. brasiliensis Sars, 1902 or E. ovilunata Martin & Belk, 1989 by Martin 1989; Martin & Belk, 1989 and Pereira & Garcia 2001) and also China (E. sp. Shen & Huang 2008). A careful examination of this type of egg using SEM could provide strong argument to clearly define each species according to the date of description. Indeed, at present eggs of E. africana , the first species described with this type of egg morphology, are not yet described using SEM.

Figures

FIG. 1. — Eggs morphology:A-D, Eulimnadia acutirostris Daday de Deés,1926,eggs from the type specimen;E-I, Eulimnadia aethiopica Daday de Deés, 1926, eggs from the type specimen. Scale bars: A-C, E-G, 50 μm; D, H, I, 20 μm.