Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) formosus Stokes, 1887

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

Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) formosus Stokes, 1887

Records from India. ANDHRA PRADESH. Bhimavaran, Visakhapatnam—Dhanapati (1976), Rao & Mohan (1977, 1987); WEST BENGAL: Amtala, South 24 Paraganas— Sharma (1980); GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004), Purushothaman (2017).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Freshwater; among filamentous algae and aquatic angiosperms.

Distribution. Species originally described from the USA, it has been reported also from India.

Remarks. In their general work on the Indian Gastrotricha, Naidu & Rao (2004) assigned this species to the subgenus Bifasciculatella Schwank, 1990 . The latter was considered invalid by Kisielewski (1997) and the species previously affiliated to it were moved to the subgenus Chaetonotus sensu stricto. We herein correct this mistake, while suggesting to consider the species to be present in India only provisional. This is due to the very little information provided so far on the specimens found, which make the identification weak even at a morphological level, and also considering that the species, outside its original homeland has been found only in India and not for example in Europe, where most of the work on freshwater Gastrotricha has been carried out so far. Indeed, such a dual point geographic distribution seems unlikely.