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On the identity of Litarachna divergens Walter, 1925 (Acari, Hydrachnidia: Pontarachnidae), with description of one new species

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Abstract

Litarachna divergens was introduced by Walter (Intern Revue Hydrobiol Hydrogr 14:1–54, 1925) for specimens collected and described by Von Schaub (Sitzungsber Kaiserl Akad Wiss Math-Naturwiss Cl 98:163–179, 1889) from Trieste (Adriatic Sea). Since then, this species has appeared regularly in faunistic lists of marine species living in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Sea of Japan. As the holotype of L. divergens is lost, and the original description is of poor quality and insufficient to ascertain its relationships, we consider it a species incerta. Litarachna thetis n. sp. is established as a new name for previously reported populations under the name L. divergens from the Sea of Japan (Uchida, J Fac Sci Hokkaido Univ Sapporo (s. 6) Zool 4(4):183–195, 1935) and from South Korea assigned by Pešić et al. (Syst Appl Acarol 13:70–74, 2008) to L. denhami. Finally, we provide a key for the three species treated in this paper.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Dr. Tomislav Karanović (Hanyang University, Seoul) for collecting the material from South Korea, to Dr. Hiroshi Kajihara (Hokkaido University, Sapporo) for information on the material of L. divergens from the collection of Tohru Uchida (ZIHU), and to Kaga Wataru (Hokkaido University, Sapporo), who photographed Uchida’s slides.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Montenegro, Cetinjski put b.b., 81000, Podgorica, Montenegro

    Vladimir Pešić

  2. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Harry Smit

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  1. Vladimir Pešić
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  2. Harry Smit
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Correspondence to Vladimir Pešić.

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Communicated by P. Martinez Arbizu

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Pešić, V., Smit, H. On the identity of Litarachna divergens Walter, 1925 (Acari, Hydrachnidia: Pontarachnidae), with description of one new species. Mar Biodiv 46, 51–57 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-015-0316-x

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