Paraturbanella brevicaudata Rao, 1991

Chatterjee, Tapas, Priyalakshmi, Geetha & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2019, An annotated checklist of the macrodasyidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 4545 (4), pp. 495-510 : 506

Paraturbanella brevicaudata Rao, 1991

= Paraturbanella brevicaudatus

Records from India. LAKSHADWEEP: Kavaratti—Rao (1991); GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004).

Habitat. Marine, intertidal; coarse and medium coralline sand, 10 cm below surface between low and mid water levels.

Distribution. India (Arabian Sea).

Remarks. A redescription of the female and male apparatus of this species is necessary as in the earlier descriptions, the female gonad is reported to be single rather than paired as it is the rule in the genus, and the important information regarding the lay-out of the sperm ducts and the position of the male pore is missing. Turbanellids have a relatively limited number of morphological characteristics and lack sclerotized structures useful for accurate species discrimination; moreover, some traits (e.g., number of adhesive tubes) may vary according to the age and size of the individuals. As a consequence, misidentifications are likely to occur more frequently in this family than in others. Recent works on Turbanellidae have found the lay-out of the sperm ducts and the position of the male pore to be traits constant within a species and consequently more useful than other characters for species identification/discrimination (e.g., Todaro et al. 2017; Dal Zotto et al. 2018). Therefore, we recommend future descriptions to include such information.