Daphnia (Daphnia) pulex Leydig, 1860

CHATTERJEE, TAPAS, KOTOV, ALEXEY A., DAMME, KAY VAN, CHANDRASEKHAR, S. V. A. & PADHYE, SAMEER, 2013, An annotated checklist of the Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) from India, Zootaxa 3667 (1), pp. 1-89 : 18-19

(30) Daphnia (Daphnia) pulex Leydig, 1860

Indian records. Assam — Brehm (1953) Kalita et al. (2011); Bihar — Nasar (1977), Kumar et al. (2011); Himachal Pradesh — Biswas (1966), Michael & Sharma B.K. (1988); Jammu & Kashmir— Brehm (1936), Brehm & Woltereck (1939), Das et al. (1969), Balkhi (1987), Michael & Sharma B.K. (1988), Raina & Vass (1993), Dar et al. (2002), Siraj et al. (2006, 2007), Akhtar et al. (2007), Sharma K.K. & Chandrakiran (2011), Sharma K.K. & Kotwal (2011), Ahangar et al. (2012a, b); Karnataka — Ansari et al. (2008); Madhya Pradesh — Shukla et al. (2002), Mahor (2011); Maharashtra – Dhimdhime et al. (2012), Koli & Muley (2012); Rajasthan — Biswas (1971), Michael & Sharma B.K. (1988), Sharma V. et al. (2008, 2012); Sikkim — Brehm (1953); Tamil Nadu — Annalakashmi & Amsath (2011); Uttarakhand —Kumar et al. (2012); Michael & Sharma B.K. (1988); West Bengal — Datta (2011); General record— Fernando & Kanduru (1984), Sharma B.K. & Michael (1987), Murugan et al. (1998), Raghunathan & Suresh Kumar (2003).

Remarks. Valid species described from Germany ( Leydig 1860). But the populations of this taxon need to be revised worldwide, definitively there are several cryptic taxa there ( Crease et al. 2012). D. pulex in the illustrations of Michael & Sharma B.K. (1988) has too small antenna I, it could be a member of the D. curvirostris species group (see Ishida et al. 2006) instead of D. pulex .

Distribution. “Northern Eurasia, North Central and possibly South America, and Africa” ( Benzie 2005), cosmopolitan according to recent genetic studies ( Crease et al. 2012). Indeed, recently its presence is confirmed for South America (Kotov et al. 2010) and South Africa ( Smirnov 2008), but Indian populations need to be checked using both morphological and molecular methods.

Daphnia (?) pulicoides Woltereck, 1932

Indian records. Jammu & Kashmir— Brehm & Woltereck (1939).

Remarks. Doubtful taxon described from USA ( Woltereck 1932). Even if it will be found valid, its presence in India is very problematic.

Daphnia (Daphnia) rosea Sars, 1862

Indian records. Jammu & Kashmir— Dar et al. (2002), Akhtar et al. (2007), Siraj et al. (2007), Sharma K.K. & Chadrakiran (2011); Maharashtra —Patil S.S. et al. (2008); General record— Fernando & Kanduru (1984).

Remarks. Doubtful record. D. rosea s.str. was described from Norway ( Sars 1862b). Although Benzie (2005) regarded it as a valid species, in reality, D. rosea is “a pond form” (=a junior synonym) of D. hyalina Leydig, 1860 . Recently proposed ( Petrusek et al. 2008) extreme opinion that D. hyalina is a junior synonym of D. longispina (O.F. Müller, 1776) needs further investigations to be confirmed. Also D. hyalina has been mentioned from India, but this record is unclear (see above).

Daphnia (Ctenodaphnia) sarojae Rane, 1986

Type locality. “ Jabalpur , rain puddle near rice field on Shahpura Road about 6 km. from Jabalpur near Tewar village ” Madhya Pradesh, India ( Rane 1986b)

Indian records. Madhya Pradesh — Rane (1986b); General record— Raghunathan & Suresh Kumar (2003).

Remarks. Junior synonym of D. carinata according to Sharma B.K. & Sharma S. (1990), junior synonym of D. similis according to S. M. Glagolev (personal communication).