Milnesium barbadosense Meyer & Hinton, 2012

Moreno, Antonio, Roszkowska, Milena, García, Mario Alberto, Flores, José Juan & Kaczmarek, Łukasz, 2019, Current knowledge on Mexican tardigrades with a description of Milnesium cassandrae sp. nov. (Eutardigrada: Milnesiidae) and discussion on the taxonomic value of dorsal pseudoplates in the genus Milnesium Doyère, 1840, Zootaxa 4691 (5), pp. 501-524 : 505-506

Milnesium barbadosense Meyer & Hinton, 2012

Terra typica: Barbados Island (Central America)

Material examined: Eleven specimens: Cueva El Infierno (25°18′30.95′′N, 100°12′37.85′′W, ca. 1522 m asl), La Camotera, Santiago, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Moss on pine ( Pinus sp.), coll. Jose Juan Flores Maldonado, 6

August 2014. One specimen: Mesa del Oso (25°16′17.77′′N, 100°13′41.86′′W, ca. 2181 m asl), Vista Hermosa, Santiago, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Moss from pine ( Pinus sp.), coll. Jose Juan Flores Maldonado, 6 August 2014.

Comments: Typical Mil. barbadosense was reported from the island country of Barbados ( Meyer & Hinton, 2012), but there are also records of Mil. cf. barbadosense from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia ( Londoño et al. 2015). All Mexican and Colombian specimens have the claw configuration [3 - 3] - [3 - 3]. Meyer & Hinton (2012) described variability in the presence of spurs on secondary branches of claws on specimens from Barbados. It is possible that the hatchling and juvenile specimens of this species have different number of spurs in comparison with adults. Such a phenomenon has been described in Mil. variefidum Morek, Gąsiorek, Stec, Blagden, & Michalczyk, 2016 ( Morek et al. 2016), Mil. tar. tardigradum ( Morek et al. 2018) and Mil. cassandrae sp. nov. (present study).