Pleurodasys helgolandicus Remane, 1927

= Pleurodasys megasoma Boaden, 1963

Records from India. KERALA: Fort Kochi (Cochin), Karunagapally—Govindankutty & Nair (1969, 1972) as Pleurodasys megasoma; GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Marine, intertidal, subtidal; fine and medium grained sediment, less frequently in intertidal zone, more widespread in submersed sand.

Distribution. North Sea; Mediterranean Sea; India (Arabian Sea).

Remarks. The Indian specimens are reported to bear a pair extraordinary organs ("lateral feet" of Naidu and Rao), each comprised of three adhesive tubes, while in the European specimens, these organs are composed of four tubes (Marotta et al., 2008). This difference, and the geographic distance from the type locality, call for a better morphological comparison between Indian and European populations. Ideally, such comparisons should also include genetic data as well as specimens from conspecifics, e.g., P. incomptus Todaro, Dal Zotto, Bownes & Perissinotto, 2017 described from South Africa (see Todaro et al. 2017). We note positively that for some of the Indian populations information on seasonal dynamics are available (Govindankutty & Nair 1972). This type of information is much needed but rarely available for gastrotrich species.