A new Batillipes (Tardigrada, Heterotardigrada, Batillipedidae) from North Portugal (Atlantic Ocean)

Abstract

The knowledge of marine tardigrades in the Iberian Peninsula is very scarce in comparison with those from limnoterrestrial environments. As part of an effort to improve the knowledge of marine tardigrades in the Iberian Peninsula, a new species of marine tardigrade, Batillipes minius sp. nov., is described from shallow subtidal coarse sand collected at Moledo, Northern Portugal, close to the mouth of the Minho river. The new species differs from all other Batillipes species by its combination of toe pattern, dorsal and ventral lateral projections, caudal apparatus, cuticle segmentation and the presence of a dorsal indentation in its head. This new species was found in well-oxygenated, shallow subtidal, mediumcoarse sand with low organic matter content.

Batillipes (Tardigrada, Arthrotardigrada) from the Portuguese coast with the description of two new species and a new dichotomous key for all species

“…nov. Therefore, as suggested by Rubal et al (2016Rubal et al ( , 2017, the presence of B. similis on the Portuguese coast cannot be assumed.…”

“…In Portugal, until the beginning of this century, excluding the Azorean Sea, only four species of marine tardigrades were recorded (Rubal et al 2013b): Batillipes similis Schulz, 1955; Echiniscoides sigismundi sigismundi Schultze, 1865; Echiniscoides sigismundi hispaniensis Kristensen & hallas, 1980 and Prostygarctus aculeatus Rubal, Veiga, Fontoura & Sousa-Pinto, 2013. Recently, Rubal et al (2016 added seven new records to the marine Portuguese tardigrade fauna, three of which belong to the genus Batillipes (B. minius Rubal, Veiga, Fontoura & Sousa-Pinto, 2017, B. pennaki Marcus, 1946and B. tubernatis Pollock, 1971 although the only Portuguese record of B. similis was questioned. This scenario justifies the urgent need for species inventories on this previously neglected region, aiming at contributing to a deeper knowledge of the Portuguese marine fauna and at understanding the peculiarities of the tardigrade biogeography.…”

Preliminary studies of the tardigrada communities from a polymetallic nodule area of the deep South China Sea

“…belong to genera found in both littoral and shallow sublittoral zones (Kaczmarek et al, 2015). All the described species of the genus Batillipes have been recorded in that zone (Kaczmarek et al, 2015;Rubal et al, 2016b;Menechella et al, 2017;Santos et al, 2017; Bartels et al, 2021). However, taking into account the record from the South China Sea and the records of two new undescribed Batillipes species from the deep sublittoral zone (260 m) in the Faroe Bank, Atlantic Ocean (Hansen et al, 2001;Hansen, 2005), this assumption needs to be reevaluated.…”

A closer look at Batillipes dicrocercus and new records of Batillipes potiguarensis (Tardigrada: Arthrotardigrada) from the Brazilian coast with comments on intra- and interspecific variability

“…Thus, and despite emended descriptions provided by McKirdy (1975) and Gallo D'Addabbo et al (2000), imprecisions still subsist and the probability of misidentification concerning B. dicrocercus is high. The record from the Baltic Sea (Hummon, 1994) was questioned by Zawierucha et al (2015) and attributed to B. noerrevangi Kristensen, 1978, and the erroneous report of Maucci & Durante-Pasa (1984) for the Balearic Sea based on a drawing of a Batillipes with a furcate caudal appendage formerly identified as B. mirus Richters, 1909by Rodriguez-Roda (1947, 1952 (see Rubal et al, 2017) are examples of misidentifications.…”