Orzeliscus, du Bois-Raymond Marcus, 1952

Bartels, Paul J., Fontoura, Paulo & Nelson, Diane R., 2018, Marine tardigrades of the Bahamas with the description of two new species and updated keys to the species of Anisonyches and Archechiniscus, Zootaxa 4420 (1), pp. 43-70 : 57

Orzeliscus sp.

Material examined: Three specimens collected at site 3 with a body length 117–128 µm long, one female and two individuals of unknown gender.

Remarks: Only three species are currently known in this genus: Orzeliscus belopus du Bois-Raymond Marcus, 1952 , which is in need of redescription (according to Kaczmarek et al. 2015); O. septentrionalis Schulz, 1953 treated as species inquirenda ( McKirdy et al. 1976, Pollock 1982); and the recently described O. asiaticus Lee, Rho & Chang, 2017 . These species can be distinguished by the shape of primary clava, presence of sensorial papilla on legs IV, development of the lateral projection between legs III and IV, and presence of a hemispherical protrusion on the cheek region of the head ( Lee et al. 2017). Unlike O. septentrionalis , in our specimens recorded in the Berry Islands, papillae on legs IV are present. In these specimens the protrusion on the head, characteristic of O. asiaticus , is absent or weakly developed. However, due to the bad orientation of the specimens from the Bahamas, the shape of the primary clava and the size of the body projection between legs III–IV cannot be properly assessed.