A new species of the genus <i>Echinolaophonte</i> Nicholls, 1941 (Copepoda, Harpacticoida, Laophontidae) from the Aegean Sea coast of Turkey

Abstract

During the ongoing partial taxonomic revision of the genus Echinolaophonte on the basis of populations previously collected from various shores of the Turkish coasts, a new species of Echinolaophonte was discovered and named Echinolaophonte mordoganensis sp. nov. The new species is morphologically most closely related to E. minuta and E. veniliae. The new species can easily be distinguished from its congeners by the combination of the following features: i) the shape of the rostrum, ii) having 2 ornamented setae instead of 1 on the syncoxa of the maxilliped, and iii) pattern difference in the P1-P4 setal formula in both male and female. The phylogenetic position of the new species in the genus has also been briefly discussed.

Phylogenetic revision of Echinolaophonte Nicholls (Copepoda, Harpacticoida, Laophontidae T. Scott) including the establishment of two new genera and two new species

“…It carries several digitate, cuspidate processes of high inter-and even intraspecific variability (e.g. Lang (1965); Wells and Rao (1987); Kuru et al (2019)) and is seen here as a synapomorphy for the respective species.…”

“…nov. (here designated as type species), Ps. mordoganensis (Kuru, Sönmez &Karaytug, 2019) ,gen. et comb. nov. andPs.…”

“…mordoganansis gen. et comb. nov. (Kuru et al 2019). That reduction is interpreted here as derived, i.e.…”

“…The "horrida" group was recently updated by Kuru et al (2019) in the framework of their description of E. mordoganensis Kuru, Sönmez & Karaytug, 2019. They included E. mordoganensis into the "horrida" group, but excluded E. tropica, since "E. tropica Ummerkutty, 1970 cannot be included in any of the lineages" (Kuru et al 2019: 183), due to confusing information with respect to the male's P3 endopod provided by Ummerkutty (1970), Wells and Rao (1987) and Wells (2007). Furthermore, Kuru et al (2019) pointed to the pending assignment of E. mirabilis, E. longantennata Apostolov, 1990 and E. gladiator to any of the groups, since no males of these species have been described so far. Lee et al (2006) fully re-described E. armiger (Gurney, 1927), based on specimens collected from the Texan coast (U.S.A.) and compared them with the type specimens deposited in the Natural History Museum (London, U.K.).…”

Interstitial harpacticoid (Copepoda, Harpacticoida) fauna inhabiting mediolittoral zone of the Gulf of Saros (Turkey)

“…After that the studies have accelerated and many literatures about harpacticoids were published in Turkey (see [11]) thus the number of harpacticoid species identified from the Turkish Seas was raised to 210 [12]. Recently six new species were added by several authors [13][14][15][16][17] so the number of species has reached to 216. Although the taxonomical researches about harpacticoids of Turkey have increased in the last 15 years, it would not be wrong to say that these studies are quite far from to reveal the real harpacticoid diversity.…”