Cythereis laevata Brady, 1880

Coimbra, João Carlos, Bergue, Cristianini Trescastro & Ramos, Maria Inês Feijó, 2020, Is Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 (Crustacea: Ostracoda) a neocytherideid? With description of a new family and two new species, Zootaxa 4729 (2), pp. 177-194 : 186

Type-species: Cythereis laevata Brady, 1880

Junior synonym: Neocopytus Külköylüoðlu, Colin & Kiliç, 2007 [part]. As already discussed above, Külköylüoðlu et al. (2007, p. 982, 983) ascribed ten species to Neocopytus , as follows: Neocytherideis cylindrica ( Brady, 1868) , Copytus novaezealandiae ( Brady, 1898) , Copytus aff. rara McKenzie (in: Hartmann, 1978), Copytus cf. rara McKenzie (in: Jain 1978, Gopalakrishna et al., 2007), Neocytherideis boomeri Dingle, 1992 , Neocytherideis cf. cylindrica (Brady) (in: Jellinek, 1993), and the South Atlantic species Copytus sp. 1, Copytus sp. 2 and Neocytherideis impudicus [ impudica ] Whatley et al., 1998, registered by Machado et al. (2005) off Rio de Janeiro State ( Brazil) as isolated valves, the last one being originally described from Argentinian waters. Most of these species belong to Neocytherideis ; actually, only three of them are Copytus , as follows: Neocytherideis boomeri [a junior synonym of Copytus fusiformis ( Yassini, 1979) ], Copytus sp. 1 (= Copytus cuspidata sp. nov.) and Copytus sp. 2 (= Copytus wuerdigae sp. nov.). (See also chapter ‘A critical synthesis of the study on Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 and its type-species’.)

Diagnosis. See the diagnosis of Copytidae fam. nov.

Remarks. See comparison of Copytus and Neocytherideis in the ‘Remarks’ of Copytidae fam. nov. Based on the diagnostic features presented in Table 1 of Külköylüoðlu et al. (2007), Neocopytus was partially synonymized with Copytus . Notwithstanding, some species attributed to Neocopytus belong to Neocytherideis , including the type-species. (See also chapter ‘ Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 vs. Neocopytus Külköylüoðlu, Colin & Kiliç, 2007 ’.)

Stratigraphic and geographic distributions. There are few fossil records of Copytus , a non-speciose genus with generally fragile carapaces, and with only small populations. Its oldest record is from the Maastrichtian of the Argentinian Patagonia, C. cretaceous (sic) Echevarría, 1988. This genus is relatively more diversified and welldistributed in the Southern Hemisphere, C. laevata , the type-species, being the one with the widest latitudinal and longitudinal distribution (Antarctic and Subantarctic provinces and Patagonian shelf). (See also chapter ‘A critical synthesis of the study on Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 and its type-species’.)

Ecology. Copytus is a shallow-water benthic marine ostracod, being more common in waters lesser than 60 m depth.