Remarks on ‘A report on Lecanidae (Rotifera: Monogononta) from Andhra Pradesh, India’: misidentifications and status

 

B.K. Sharma 1 & Sumita Sharma 2

 

1,2 Freshwater Biology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, North-Eastern Hill University, Permanent Campus, Shillong, Meghalaya 793022, India

1 probksharma@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 sumitasharma.nehu@gmail.com

 

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3876.5590-2

Date of publication: 26 March 2014 (online & print)

Manuscript details: Ms # o3876 | Received 03 December 2013

Citation: B.K. Sharma & Sumita Sharma (2014).Remarks on ‘A report on Lecanidae (Rotifera: Monogononta) from Andhra Pradesh, India’: misidentifications and status. Journal of Threatened Taxa 6(3): 5590–5592; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3876.5590-2

Copyright: © Sharma & Sharma 2014. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

 

 

For figures, images, tables -- click here

 

 

Lecanidae is one of the largest and most speciose families of Indian Rotifera (Sharma 1996, 1998).  Our recent evaluation of Lecanidae diversity in India (Sharma & Sharma 2014) highlighted various dubious lecanid reports in several routine rotifer faunal surveys without any voucher specimens to warrant any validation, while the fuzzy descriptions of new Lecane species from this country and the lack of deposition of their type specimens aggravated taxonomic discrepancies.  A compilation of rotifers by Dhanapathi (2000) relying on misidentifications and poor illustrations of the taxon added to such anomalies.  This trend has continued unabated in a report on Lecanidae from Andhra Pradesh by Siddiqi & Karuthapandi (2013).  This communication attempts to review the said report with emphasis on misidentifications, nomenclature discrepancies and validity of different species to warrant rectification of anomalous reports and provide a list of valid species from the state.

This validation of Lecane spp. reported by Siddiqi & Karuthapandi (2013) from Andhra Pradesh is undertaken as a part our ongoing work on ‘Monograph of Indian Freshwater Rotifera’.  Our comments are based on the said published report vis-à-vis our own examination of Lecanidae collections from different parts of India including those from Andhra Pradesh.  The present remarks are supplemented with micro-photographs taken with Leica DM 1000 stereomicroscope fitted with Leica DM 295 image analyzer.

Of the different new records from Andhra Pradesh (Siddiqi & Karuthapandi 2013, Images 1–6): Lecane aculeata, L. haliclysta, L. furcata, L. pawlowskii, L. pyriformis and L. ruttneri; all except L. pyriformis are misidentifications. Lecane bidentata,described by Dhanapathi (1976) from Andhra Pradesh without deposited type, was categorized as species inquirenda by Segers (1995, 2007) and Jersabek & Leitner (2013); it has been placed on the B-list of the “List of available names” (Segers et al. 2012) and as such suggested for removal from zoological nomenclature (http://89.26.108.66/LAN_CandidatePart-Rotifera-2012-03-22.pdf).  Lecane donnerianus Dhanapathi, 1976, described from this state, has been synonymized (Segers 1995) with L. ungulata.  The unwarranted listing of these taxa as valid species has been continued by Siddiqi & Karuthapandi (2013).  In addition, our remarks on status of various species are summarized in Table 1.

In light of the above remarks, we conclude 22 valid Lecanespecies known from Andhra Pradesh instead of 33 and 26 species listed by Siddiqi & Karuthapandi (2013) and Karuthapandi et al. (2013), respectively. These are:

1. Lecane arcula Harring, 1914

2. Lecane bulla (Gosse, 1851)

3. Lecane closterocerca (Schmarda, 1859)

4. Lecane curvicornis (Murray 1913)

5. Lecane eswari Dhanapathi, 1976

6. Lecane furcata (Murray, 1913)

7. Lecane hamata (Stokes, 1896)

8. Lecane hastata (Murray, 1913)

9. Lecane hornemanni (Ehrenberg, 1881)

10. Lecane inopinata Harring & Myers, 1926

11. Lecane leontina (Turner, 1892)

12. Lecane luna (O. F Muller, 1776)

13. Lecane lunaris (Ehrenberg, 1832)

14. Lecane obtusa (Murray, 1913)

15. Lecane papuana (Murray, 1913)

16. Lecane pyriformis (Daday, 1905)

17. Lecane quadridentata (Ehrenberg, 1832)

18. Lecane stenroosi (Meissner, 1908)

19. Lecane tenuiseta Harring, 1914

20. Lecane tryphema Harring & Myers, 1926

21. Lecane ungulata (Gosse, 1887)

22. Lecane unguitata (Fadeev, 1925)

Lecanidae of Andhra Pradesh is less species-rich than that documented from several other states of India (Sharma & Sharma 2014).  This misleading generalization is attributed to the fact that Rotifer fauna of this state is yet partly explored.  Of the documented species, L. eswari merits biogeographic interest as this erstwhile Indian endemic is a Paleotropical species (Sharma & Sharma 2009, 2014; Segers & Savatenalinton 2010)

 

References

 

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Dhanapathi, M.V.S.S.S. (2000). Taxonomic notes on the Rotifers from India (from 1889–2000). Indian Association of Aquatic Biologists (IAAB), publication No. 10. Hyderabad, 1–180pp.

Jersabek, C.D. & M.F. Leitner (2013). The Rotifer World Catalog. World Wide Web electronic publication <http://www.rotifera.hausdernatur.at/> accessed on 03.12.2013.

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