Pseudochordodes griffinii ( Camerano, 1898 )

Villalobos, C. De & Zanca, F., 2005, Ultrastructural redescription of Chordodes moraisi (Carvalho, 1942) and Chordodes straviarskii Carvalho and Feio, 1950, and re-interpretation of Chordodes gestri Camerano, 1904 and Pseudochordodes griffinii (Camerano, 1898) (Gordiida, Nematomorpha), Journal of Natural History 39 (8), pp. 597-606 : 604

[ Pseudochordodes griffinii ( Camerano, 1898) ]

( Figure 4 )

Chordodes griffinii Camerano 1898, p 74 .

Pseudochordodes griffinii: Miralles and de Villalobos 1994, p 14 .

Holotype: one male, Museo Regionale di Science Naturali , Torino, Italy ( MZUT G39 ) . Paratype: one female ( MZUT G39 ) .

Type locality. Altoyac, Vera Cruz Mexico.

Material examined. Holotype and paratype: SEM midbody.

Host. Unknown.

Camerano (1898) described the new species Chordodes griffinii from a male and a female from Mexico, having two types of areole. Miralles and De Villalobos (1994), basing their decision on Figure 5 and 5a of Camerano (1899), transferred this species to the genus Pseudochordodes Carvalho, 1942 . In SEM investigation of the holotype ( Figure 4A, B ) and the paratype, the cuticle shows the same characteristics that were observed for Chordodes peraccae (see De Villalobos and Zanca 2001).

It is important to emphasize that although the male specimen shows crowned areoles with short filaments that occur in clusters of two and are surrounded by 8–10 elevated areoles ( Figure 4B ), it does not have crowned areoles with very long filaments distributed on both sides along the ventral midline. These types of crowned areole occur only in the females ( De Villalobos and Zanca 2001) so their presence should be considered as a sexual dimorphism for this species.

On the other hand, the only possible explanation for the fact that Camerano (1898, 1899) did not notice the presence of crowned areoles in these specimens is that he probably based his analysis on a small portion of the cuticle. Therefore, we regard Chordodes griffinii as a synonym of Chordodes peraccae .

Figures

Figure 4. SEM of male of ‘‘Pseudochordodes griffinii’’ holotype. (A) Cuticle of midbody; (B) areolar group in the middle region of the body. Scale bars: 10 mm.