Two copepod species largely confused: (Norman, 1868) and (Claus, 1889). Taxonomical implications

M. Eugenia Bandera (1) , Mercedes Conradi (1)

1 Biodiversidad y Ecología de Invertebrados Marinos, Departamento de Fisiología y Zoología, Facultad de Biología

Due to its extremely brief description, (Norman, 1868) has been confused with some species such as Giesbrecht, 1897, Giesbrecht, 1897 and (Brady, 1872). Furthermore, this species has been considered conspecific with (Brady, 1872) and Canu, 1898. The objective of this paper is to study the syntypes of deposited in the Museum of Natural History of London together with abundant material from this and other institutions. Re-examination of these syntypes revealed that was conspecific with the currently known species, . Therefore, this latter species should be considered as a junior synonym of the former. The specimens described by Brady as represent distinctively (=) and are identical to Sars's and to Giesbrecht's . We propose to rename as (Brady, 1872), and raise Sars' , a species which is different from (=) and from (=), as a new species. In this paper, we not only redescribe both species and , but also compare them with their previous descriptions, with the new material available and with their congeners. The redescription of revealed new specific differences between this species and , a species considered as synonymous of for almost 40 years. We strongly recommend that these differences are sufficient to consider these two species different. Finally, we analyzed the implications of all these taxonomical changes with respect to the diversity of the hosts utilized by these copepods and their geographical distribution.

Mots clés: Siphonostomatoida

M. Eugenia Bandera, Mercedes Conradi. Two copepod species largely confused: (Norman, 1868) and (Claus, 1889). Taxonomical implications. Helgoland Marine Research, 2009, 63 (4), pp.261-276. ⟨10.1007/s10152-009-0154-y⟩. ⟨hal-00535191⟩