Tylencholaimus intermedius Peña-Santiago & Coomans, 1996

Ahmad, Wasim, 2010, Three new and a known species of Tylencholaimoidea (Nematoda: Dorylaimida) from Singapore, Zootaxa 2505, pp. 51-64 : 63

Tylencholaimus intermedius Peña-Santiago & Coomans, 1996

Measurements: Table 2

Habitat and locality: Soil around roots of bushes and forest trees from Rifle Range Road, opposite Maurname reservoir, Singapore; collected on 27 August 2003.

Remarks: Peňa-Santiago & Coomans (1996) described Tylencholaimus intermedius from Spain. Ahmad and Araki (2003) reported two females of this species from Japan and recently, Ahmad et al. (2009) recorded a single specimen from Korea. The present specimens from Singapore conform well with the type specimens as well as the Japanese and Korean specimens. It seems that this species is quite widely distributed in East and South East Asia.

Recently, Andrássy (2009) transferred this species to the genus Tantunema because of its small amphids and shape of lip region. We have examined this species from Japan, Korea as well as the present one from Singapore. In all these specimens, the amphids are consistently cup-shaped with slit-like aperture and a postlabial sclerotization is present. The genus Tantunema is characterized by the presence of a pore-like amphid and none of the three species presently described under this genus has post-labial sclerotozation. Hence, the placement of this species under Tylencholaimus appears more justified.