Claxtonia, Gąsiorek & Vončina & Kristensen & Michalczyk, 2021

Gąsiorek, Piotr, Vončina, Katarzyna, Kristensen, Reinhardt Møbjerg & Michalczyk, Łukasz, 2021, Fig. 7 in Fig. 4. A in Saphonecrus globosus Schweger and Tang 2015, Zoological Studies (Zool. Stud.) 60 (70), pp. 1-45 : 4

Claxtonia sp. nov. ( Fig. 1 )

Material examined: One adult male (slide TW.007.21) with evident U-shaped, granulated subcephalic plates.

Remarks: The scarce material and the lack of DNA data prevent a formal description of this new species, most closely resembling the following Claxtonia species: C. wendti ( Richters, 1903) , C. pardalis ( Degma & Schill, 2015) , and C. goni Degma et al., 2021 . However, in none of the aforementioned echiniscids were males recorded, and the new species differs from these species by minute differences in dorsal plate sculpturing. In the light of this discovery, the record of C. wendti from Hainan ( Li et al. 2008), another continental island nearby the East Asian coast, is more likely to represent the new Claxtonia species than C. wendti .

Figures

Fig. 1. Habitus of a male of a new, undescribed species of Claxtonia (PCM, dorsal view). Scale bar in μm.