Denticulella Cobb, 1933

Venekey, Virag, Gheller, Paula F., Kandratavicius, Noelia, Cunha, Beatriz Pereira, Vilas-Boas, Ana Carolina, Fonseca, Gustavo & Maria, Tatiana F., 2019, The state of the art of Chromadoridae (Nematoda, Chromadorida): a historical review, diagnoses and comments about valid and dubious genera and a list of valid species, Zootaxa 4578 (1), pp. 1-67 : 36

Genus Denticulella Cobb, 1933

The genus Denticulella was established by Cobb (1933) with the description of D. pellucida originally from the USA. It was first described as closely related to Hypondontolaimus, differing from it in having a smaller and more acute dorsal tooth and the presence of crenated pharyngeal wall ( Cobb, 1933). Denticulella was previously considered in Chromadorinae ( Wieser, 1954) , in an intermediate position between Chromadorita and Dichromadora considering the cuticle and the teeth shape. In that same work, Wieser transferred Chromadora polydonta Schulz, 1932 and Dichromadora stygia Gerlach, 1952 to Denticulella , ending up with three species in the genus. Subsequently, Denticulella stygia ( Gerlach, 1952) was transferred to Parachromadorita by Blome (1974) based on the loop-shaped amphideal fovea instead of having a slit-like amphideal fovea as originally described by Cobb (1933). More recently two additional species were described by Dashchenko (2002).

Diagnosis (modified from Tchesunov 2014): Cuticle ornamentation heterogeneous along the body, lateral differentiation of larger dots not arranged in longitudinal rows; in the region of the buccal cavity, a grid-like pattern may be present. Six small outer labial setae or papillae and four cephalic setae in separate circles. Two circles of labial setae are conspicuous in D. pellucida . Somatic setae may be present. Amphideal fovea transverse slit-like and loop shaped. Buccal cavity with a dorsal tooth, two smaller ventrosublateral teeth and numerous additional denticles. Pharynx extending from a peribuccal tissue with asymmetrical dorsal swelling related to the size of dorsal tooth, to a single end bulb. Males with cup-shaped precloacal supplements. Marine.