Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) vulgaris Brunson, 1950

Chatterjee, Tapas & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2021, An annotated checklist of the chaetonotidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 5027 (3), pp. 332-350 : 335

Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) vulgaris Brunson, 1950

Records from India. ANDHRA PRADESH: Bhimilipatnam near Visakhapatnam— Rao & Mohan (1977, 1987); ODISHA: Cuttack, Sambalpur— Sharma (1987); GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004), Purushothaman (2017).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Freshwater; among aquatic vegetation.

Distribution. USA and India.

Remarks. The descriptions of the species are poor, including the original one. For instance, Brunson (1950) due to the small size of the specimens and the microscopical technique used at the time, was not able to ascertain the presence of the scales from which the spines originate. No other description of the species from the USA exists. The description of the Indian specimens is even more scarce, so much so that the question arises as to which bases the authors may have been used to attribute them with certainty to C. vulgaris . Indeed, nowadays there are several gastrotrich species whose general traits may match the insufficient original description of C. vulgaris . In the light of this difficulty, we consider the taxon C. vulgaris to be a species inquirenda. In absence of a new, most complete description of the American specimens (possibly from Michigan), any records from distant geographic areas (i.e., India) appear to be unsound; consequently, this species should not be considered part of the Indian fauna.