Copytus fusiformis ( Yassini, 1979 )

Coimbra, João Carlos, Bergue, Cristianini Trescastro & Ramos, Maria Inês Feijó, 2020, Is Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 (Crustacea: Ostracoda) a neocytherideid? With description of a new family and two new species, Zootaxa 4729 (2), pp. 177-194 : 183-184

Copytus fusiformis ( Yassini, 1979) .

Copytus fusiformis ( Yassini, 1979) was originally described as Neocytherideis from the Pliocene of SW Algeria and subsequently recorded from the Recent off Morocco ( Llano 1981), Senegal ( Carbonel et al. 1983) and the Gambia ( Witte 1993). The latter author changed the name to Copytus , because it has the cluster of four adductor scars in a small circular group so distinctive of Copytus , although the very elongate cylindrical shape with a narrowly pointed anterior margin below mid-height being perhaps more common in Neocytherideis . Besides, the hinge line is very long and not confined to the posterior half of the length. Witte (1993) notes the “remarkable similarity” of this species to Indo-Pacific and Australian species of the genus such as C. rara McKenzie, 1967 , Copytus sp. cf. C. rara (in Jain 1978) and C. tubulata (nomen nudum) in Labutis (1977). The Labutis’ species (pl. 11: 11; pl. 23: 6–7), with a small circular cluster of adductor scars and adont hinge, clearly belongs to Copytus . Witte (1993) also registered some similarity to Copytus sp. n. of Bertels & Martínez (1990) from the onshore Quaternary of southern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Although this Argentinian species is externally similar to C. fusiformis , it is smaller (l = 0.80 mm) and less elongate, and is in the list of synonymies of Neocytherideis impudicus [impudica ] Whatley et al., 1998. It is also noteworthy that Copytus sp. of Bertels et al. (1982), recovered from the Quaternary of southernmost Brazil, is another junior synonym of N. impudica .

The present authors without hesitation refer Neocytherideis boomeri Dingle, 1992 to the genus Copytus on the grounds of its very long hinge without terminal teeth and subcircular aggregate of four adductor scars, and we also consider it a junior synonym of C. fusiformis ( Yassini, 1979) . The South African material is very similar in outline, ornamentation and size (l = 0.95–1.00 mm) to the material of C. fusiformis from Gambia (l = 0.93–1.02 mm).