Echiniscus merokensis Richters, 1904

Fontoura, Paulo, Pilato, Giovanni & Lisi, Oscar, 2008, Echiniscidae (Tardigrada, Heterotardigrada) from Faial and Pico Islands, the Azores, with the description of two new species, Zootaxa 1693, pp. 49-61 : 54-55

Echiniscus merokensis Richters, 1904

Material examined: Five specimens (2 females and 3 specimens of unknown sex; body length 160–226 µm) from a moss sample collected on Terras do Pico, Pico Island. All the specimens were mounted in Hoyer’s medium with a small amount of potassium iodide.

The sculpture of the dorsal plates consists of irregular sized and shaped pores and, in some portion of the plates, also of large circular black dots; in some plates (some areas of the scapular plate, posterior portion of paired plates and median plates), the pores are arranged in a circular pattern around the black dots. On the central portion of the scapular plate and on the terminal plate also, very fine, almost invisible dots are present between the light pores.

The species is probably cosmopolitan being recorded from all the zoogeographic regions, the Oriental and the Australian excluded. This is the first record of E. merokensis in the Azores.