Neogossea antennigera (Gosse, 1851)

Chatterjee, Tapas & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2021, An annotated checklist of the chaetonotidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 5027 (3), pp. 332-350 : 344

Neogossea antennigera (Gosse, 1851)

Records from India. MAHARASTRA: Nagpur— Visvesvara (1963) ; GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004).

Habitat (as in Indian records). Freshwater; pelagic.

Distribution. This species has so far been reported from several European countries and from India.

Remarks. In India this species was found only once; the author, Visvesvara (1963) refers to several specimens from Sakardara tank, but provides measurements clearly referred to a single specimen only (e.g., total length, 115 μm). Visvesvara (1963) also states that “ Examination of the specimens under the oil immersion did not show the presence of scales as claimed by Voigt”. Specimens of this species found in Europe are of bigger size (i.e., total length 150-200 μm) and always have been described to have scales. Probably aware of these differences, Visvesvara himself stated that “… my specimens (only) closely resemble to the species described by Gosse (1851)”. In our opinion the presence of this taxon in India should be considered to be solely provisional, as additional material is need to clearly confirm its presence here. In their review of the Indian gastrotrich fauna, Naidu & Rao (2004) incorrectly refer this species to have testes (page 91); in fact, the paired structures next to the pharyngo-intestinal junction in the specimen of their Figure 41 actually are protonephridia (e.g., see Schwank 1990, page 32, fig. 7).