Punctodora Filipjev, 1929

Venekey, Virag, Gheller, Paula F., Kandratavicius, Noelia, Cunha, Beatriz Pereira, Vilas-Boas, Ana Carolina, Fonseca, Gustavo & Maria, Tatiana F., 2019, The state of the art of Chromadoridae (Nematoda, Chromadorida): a historical review, diagnoses and comments about valid and dubious genera and a list of valid species, Zootaxa 4578 (1), pp. 1-67 : 17

Genus Punctodora Filipjev, 1929

This genus was established by Filipjev (1929) designating P. ratzeburgensis ( Linstow, 1876) , which was previously described as Chromadora ratzeburgensis Linstow, 1876 , as the type species. Wieser (1954) later suggested that Chromadora salinarum Linstow, 1901 should be considered as Punctodora salinarum ( Linstow, 1901) (misspelled as P. salinarium ) and we agree with him. Schneider (1943) described P. ohridiensis and Neochromadora trilineata , but the latter was considered a synonym of the former considering the diagnostic feature of this species (three longitudinal rows of coarse punctuations) as an intraspecific variation in P. ohridensis ( Gerlach & Meyl 1957) . However, subsequently, Hopper (1963) reinstated the separate species status for Neochromadora trilineata from Punctodora ohridiensis and considered the former species as incertae sedis since there was not material available for further investigation. This author also described P. exochopora . The last species described in this genus was P. dudichi by Andrássy (1966).

Diagnosis (modified from Tchesunov 2014): Homogenous punctated cuticle with lateral dots, some bigger than the submedian dots. Amphideal fovea flattened, spiral and situated at the level of dorsal tooth. Stoma with well-developed dorsal tooth and two smaller ventrosublateral teeth visible at the anterior and posterior border of an indentation. Ocelli present. Secretory-excretory pore in head region. Well defined posterior pharyngeal bulb. Presence of one to 18 cup shaped precloacal supplements. This genus largely resembles Prochromadora by the cuticle pattern, but it differs by having large dots in the lateral view, but not forming a longitudinal row. All species are mainly freshwater although P. salinarum can occur in inland waters with salinity ranging from 4 to 21‰.