Macrobiotus sandrae Bertolani & Rebecchi 1993

Guil, Noemí, 2008, New records and within-species variability of Iberian tardigrades (Tardigrada), with comments on the species from the Echiniscus blumi-canadensis series, Zootaxa 1757, pp. 1-30 : 24

Macrobiotus sandrae Bertolani & Rebecchi 1993

The anterior band of teeth was not detected in the buccal armature in any of the 488 specimens examined; probably it was so weak that it could not be seen by light microscopy ( Bertolani & Rebecchi 1993). The posterior band of teeth was also faint ( Bertolani & Rebecchi 1993) and could not be discerned in many specimens. Lunules in the fourth pair of legs of some specimens showed irregular margins, possibly due to small size of the teeth, preventing their observation. A total of 103 eggs were examined, all of them belonging to type 2 morphology described by Bertolani and Rebecchi (1993). Three out of 17 sampling points (sampling sites 31, 37, and 52; Table 3) did not have eggs so they have to be referred to as Macrobiotus cf. sandrae . However, all specimens had identical animal morphology. Mean body size was 702 μm (SD 209), range 252 to 1375 μm. The species has been cited for Europe and Asia. This is the first record for the Iberian Peninsula ( Table 2 ). Macrobiotus sandrae was observed at 17 sampling points (Table 3) in all habitats analyzed.