Paramacrobiotus areolatus (Murray 1907)
- Dataset
- Annotated zoogeography of non-marine Tardigrada. Part II: South America
- Rank
- SPECIES
Classification
- kingdom
- Animalia
- phylum
- Tardigrada
- class
- Heterotardigrada
- order
- Parachela
- family
- Macrobiotidae
- genus
- Paramacrobiotus
- species
- Paramacrobiotus areolatus
description
Makrobiotus aff. areolatus Murray (Richters 1911 a)
discussion
Remarks: The genus Paramacrobiotus (until recently a species group within Macrobiotus) is currently divided into two groups: richtersi and areolatus (with and without macroplacoid, respectively). P. areolatus, once considered cosmopolitan (McInnes 1994 a), is now recognised as the nominal species for a group of very similar taxa that require careful taxonomic examination of adults and egg morphology for correct identification. Recently, new species belonging to the areolatus group have been described from Central and South America (e. g. Michalczyk & Kaczmarek 2006 b, Degma et al. 2008, Kaczmarek et al. 2014 b). In the light of these reports and because P. areolatus was originally described from the Arctic, we feel all records of this species from South America should be treated with caution until relevant examples are re-examined or the presence in the region is otherwise verified.