Hydryphantes

Sabatino, Antonio Di, Gerecke, Reinhard, Gledhill, Terence & Smit, Harry, 2009, On the taxonomy of water mites (Acari: Hydrachnidia) described from the Palaearctic, part 2: Hydryphantoidea and Lebertioidea, Zootaxa 2266, pp. 1-34 : 12

Hydryphantes (s.str.) crassipalpis Koenike, 1914

Hydrobaderia ilicaensis Özkan, 1985 , nov. syn.

Material examined: Hydryphantes crassipalpis , specimens from Germany, Bulgaria and Sweden ( SMF 4914, 5804, 6827, 6828); location of the holotype of H. ilicaensis unclear, not given in the original description.

Discussion: The genus Hydrobaderia was introduced for a single specimen collected together with numerous representatives of Hydryphantes crassipalpis from a pond in Turkey ( Özkan 1985). As stated by the author and documented in his detailed description, it agrees with the latter species in all details, with the fundamental exception of the absence of a frontal shield as found typically in all species of Hydryphantes . Instead, only a pair of elongated sclerotized rods is found in that area where typically two apodemes form the characteristic posterior extensions of the Hydryphantes frontal shield.

Recently, the same phenomenon was detected in a specimen of H. flexuosus from Spain (see below). Obviously, occasionally the formation of a frontal shield may be suppressed by some kind of developmental disturbance and its absence is not a character suitable for the definition of taxonomic units. Therefore we consider H. iliceansis a synonym of H. crassipalpis and, consequently, the genus Hydrobaderia Özkan, 1985 a synonym of Hydryphantes Koch, 1841 .