Vol. 60, 2021
(update: 2021.10.4; 12.13)
High Mountain Echiniscid
(Heterotardigrada) fauna of Taiwan
Piotr Gąsiorek1,* , Katarzyna Vončina1 , Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen2 , and Łukasz Michalczyk1
doi:10.6620/ZS.2021.60-70
1Department
of Invertebrate Evolution, Institute of Zoology and Biomedical
Research, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 9,
30-387 Kraków, Poland. *Correspondence: piotr.lukas.gasiorek@gmail.com
(Gąsiorek)
E-mail: kat.von@onet.eu (Vončina); lm@tardigrada.net (Michalczyk)
2Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of
Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail:
rmkristensen@snm.ku.dk (Kristensen)
Received 3 August 2021 / Accepted 13
September 2021
Communicated by Daniel Setc
Taiwan
lies at the transitional zone between the East Palaearctic and Oriental
regions, which translates into both Palaearctic and
Indomalayan taxa being present on the island. Furthermore, large habitat
heterogeneity and high mountains contributed to the rise of conditions
favouring allopatric speciation and the emergence of endemic species.
The tardigrade fauna of Taiwan is poorly studied, and the aim of this
contribution is to provide new data on the members of the family
Echiniscidae, the largest limno-terrestrial group of the class
Heterotardigrada, found at high elevations in central Taiwan. We report
11 species grouped in 5 genera: Claxtonia
(1 species), Echiniscus (3
species), Hypechiniscus (1
species), Nebularmis (2
species), and Pseudechiniscus
(4 species). All are new to Taiwan, including 5 species that are new to
science, 4 or which are described herein by means of integrative
taxonomy as: Hypechiniscus crassus
sp. nov. (the exarmatus morphogroup), Pseudechiniscus
(Meridioniscus) dreyeri sp. nov., Pseudechiniscus (Pseudechiniscus) formosus sp. nov., and Pseudechiniscus (Pseudechiniscus) totoro sp. nov. The new findings
also help to clarify the description of Echiniscus clevelandi Beasley,
1999, and supplement the phylogenies of the Echiniscus virginicus complex and
of the genera Hypechiniscus, Nebularmis and Pseudechiniscus.
Key words: Biogeography,
Endemism, Integrative taxonomy, Oriental, Palaearctic, Phylogeny.
Citation:
Gąsiorek P, Vončina K, Kristensen RM, Michalczyk L. 2021. High mountain
echiniscid (Heterotardigrada) fauna of Taiwan. Zool Stud 60:70. doi:10.6620/ZS.2021.60-70.

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