Chaetonotus (Hystricochaetonotus) acanthophorus Stokes, 1888

Chatterjee, Tapas & Todaro, M. Antonio, 2021, An annotated checklist of the chaetonotidan Gastrotricha from India, Zootaxa 5027 (3), pp. 332-350 : 336

Chaetonotus (Hystricochaetonotus) acanthophorus Stokes, 1888

Records from India. ANDHRA PRADESH: Visakhapatnam – Rao & Mohan (1977) ; GENERAL RECORD: Naidu & Rao (2004).

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

Distribution. USA, Europe and India.

Remarks. The original description is incomplete; however, at a morphological level, the species should be easy to identify due to its small size and the peculiar type and arrangement of the spiny dorsal covering. In fact, it is made of short simple spines on the head, neck, and anterior trunk, and of 20 long, barbed spines, arranged in five rows and 4 columns on the mid- and posterior trunk region. Real (1940) provided information on the shape and size of the scales from which the longer spines originate. In India, the species has been found only once ( Rao & Mohan 1977), and the accounted morphology of the specimens fits well with the original description. The subgenus Hystricochaetonotus appears misspelled in the legends of figures 59-64 of Naidu & Rao (2004).