Lepidochaetus zelinkai (Grunspan, 1908)

Chatterjee, Tapas & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2021, An annotated checklist of the chaetonotidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 5027 (3), pp. 332-350 : 342

Lepidochaetus zelinkai (Grunspan, 1908)

= Chaetonotus zelinkai Grunspan, 1908

Records from India. WEST BENGAL: Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary Latong beat ( Bharti & Kumar 2019). GEN- ERAL RECORDS: Naidu & Rao (2004).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Terrestrial soil.

Distribution. Cosmopolitan.

Remarks. This is the most recent description of an Indian gastrotrich. Several specimens were found by Bharti & Kumar (2019), while looking for ciliates in soaked samples of terrestrial soil (personal communication to MAT). The reported size for the Indian specimens appears slightly smaller than that reported in literature for the species (total body length 190 μm vs 210-224 μm). However, this difference is probably due to the fact that the measured Indian gastrotrichs were not fully grown adults, as it can be inferred from the absence of large eggs inside of any of the specimens photographed by the authors (see Bharti & Kumar 2019, Figs. 1-3).