Minibiotus Schuster, 1980

Meyer, Harry A. & Hinton, Juliana G., 2009, The Tardigrada of southern Africa, with the description of Minibiotus harrylewisi, a new species from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Eutardigrada: Macrobiotidae), African Invertebrates 50 (2), pp. 255-255 : 261

Genus Minibiotus Schuster , Nelson, Grigarick & Christenberry, 1980

Minibiotus currently consists of 42 species, and four of them are known to occur in southern Africa (Table 1). Minibiotus africanus occurs elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa ( Binda et al. 2001).

Guidetti et al. (2007) listed a suite of 10 characters shared by most, though not all, species of Minibiotus . These characters are: (1) anteroventral mouth; (2) oral cavity teeth absent or strongly reduced; (3) rigid, narrow buccal tube (width pt =12); (4) buccal tube thickened below the point of insertion of stylet supports; (5) stylet supports inserted at a considerable distance from the posterior end of the buccal tube (pt =73); (6) short ventral lamina (pt =73); (7) short macroplacoid row length (pt =42); (8) double curvature of the buccal tube; (9) first macroplacoid located very close to the pharyngeal apophyses; and (10) three almost rounded macroplacoids.