Maraenobiotus galassiae, Brancelj & Karanovic, 2015

Brancelj, Anton & Karanovic, Tomislav, 2015, A new subterranean Maraenobiotus (Crustacea: Copepoda) from Slovenia challenges the concept of polymorphic and widely distributed harpacticoids, Journal of Natural History 49 (45), pp. 2905-2928 : 2924

Maraenobiotus galassiae sp. nov.

[ partim.] Maraenobiotus vejdovskyi Mrázek, 1893 – Pesce et al. 1994: p. 83, figs. 18–27.

Type locality

Italy, Alto Adige, Croda di Cengles, I Laghetti, Seenlein, smaller lake, epibenthic and interstitial habitat in pebbles and coarse gravel.

Type material

Holotype female illustrated by Pesce et al. (1994) in their figures 18–27, from the type locality, originally deposited in the Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali , Università di L’ Aquila, Via Vetoio 14, 67100 Coppito, L’ Aquila, Italy. Current location the same, but condition not checked since the 2009 L’ Aquila earthquake, which damaged many slides (Prof. Diana M. P. Galassi, personal communication, July 2014). [not examined]

Etymology

The species name is dedicated to Prof. Diana M. P. Galassi, who discovered these specimens in Italy with her collaborators. The name is a noun in the genitive singular.

Description

Female as illustrated by Pesce et al. (1994) in their figures 18–27, as Maraenobiotus veydovskyi Mrázek, 1893 .

Remarks

This female specimen has truncated principal caudal setae as in Maraenobiotus veydovskyi truncatus Gurney, 1932 , but the caudal rami look very different in shape and size. They are cylindrical in dorsal view and almost twice as long as wide in M. galassiae sp. nov., while the caudal rami in M. vejdovskyi truncatus are almost conical in shape and about as long as wide. Also, in the latter species the distal lateral caudal setae seem to be either much reduced in size or absent, while they are well developed in the former. The caudal rami of M. galassiae are most similar in shape to those of the Japanese M. ishidai sp. nov. (see above) and it may be plausible that the two have shared a recent common ancestor with a wide Holarctic range (for major differences between them see above). Maraenobiotus galassiae differs from M. slovenicus sp. nov. (see above) and M. pescei sp. nov. (see above) by much longer and cylindrical caudal rami, among other things.