Ichthydium (Forficulichthys) monolobum Brunson, 1950

Chatterjee, Tapas & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2021, An annotated checklist of the chaetonotidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 5027 (3), pp. 332-350 : 342

Ichthydium (Forficulichthys) monolobum Brunson, 1950

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

Habitat (as in Indian record). Freshwater; among algae and aquatic plants.

Distribution. North America (Ontario and Michigan), Europe and India.

Remarks. Brunson (1950) reports for this species the following main measurements: total length 139 μm, phar- ynx length 33 μm, and furca length 30 μm. By contrast, the single specimen studied by Visvesvara (1963) had the following measures; total length, 158 μm, pharynx length 52 μm, and furca length 19 μm. Moreover, the drawing provided by Visvesvara (1963, page 436, Fig. 1) for the Indian specimen shows a gastrotrich with a furca having a shape completely different with respect to the species described by Brunson (1950, page. 341, Fig. 36). Based on these differences it seems evident to us that we are dealing here with two very different species, in contrast with Visvesvara’s (1963) suggestion that they are same species. Therefore, we propose Ichthydium (Forficulichthys) monolobum Brunson, 1950 not to be part of the Indian fauna. The taxonomic status of the specimen found by Visvesvara (1963) remains to be identified.