Anastasiia A. Saulenko
A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Paltchevsky Street 17, Vladivostok, 690041, Russia
Far Eastern Federal University, Ajax Bay 10, Vladivostok, 690922, Russia
Anastassya S. Maiorova
A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Paltchevsky Street 17, Vladivostok, 690041, Russia
Viktoriia D. Yagodina
A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Paltchevsky Street 17, Vladivostok, 690041, Russia
Far Eastern Federal University, Ajax Bay 10, Vladivostok, 690922, Russia
Viet Dung Vu
Coastal Branch of Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center (Tropical Center), 30 Nguyen Thien Thuat, Khanh Hoa, Nha Trang, Vietnam
Thi-Lan Nguyen
Coastal Branch of Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center (Tropical Center), 30 Nguyen Thien Thuat, Khanh Hoa, Nha Trang, Vietnam
Trong Huan Phan
Coastal Branch of Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center (Tropical Center), 30 Nguyen Thien Thuat, Khanh Hoa, Nha Trang, Vietnam
Vladimir V. Mordukhovich
A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Paltchevsky Street 17, Vladivostok, 690041, Russia
Far Eastern Federal University, Ajax Bay 10, Vladivostok, 690922, Russia
[We follow the code of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, taxonomic papers with new species/genus descriptions will not have early view version.]
Communicated by Daniel Stec
Four species of tardigrades have been found in the meiofauna communities of the seagrass meadows and adjacent areas off the coast of Vietnam. For two of them, Batillipes binhdinhicus sp. nov. and Batillipes ampullus sp. nov., integrative descriptions are presented. Batillipes binhdinhicus sp. nov. belongs to the B1 subgroup of species by having toe 3 shorter than toe 4 on legs IV, while Batillipes ampullus sp. nov. with toes 3 and 4 on legs IV of equal length belongs to the A group of species. Batillipes binhdinhicus sp. nov. can be distinguished from all previously described species by a set of features: very long cephalic cirri and leg sensory spines, both with swollen tips, presence of a single pair of conical lateral body projections between all pairs of legs and simple triangular caudal appendage. The distinctive features for Batillipes ampullus sp. nov. are short sensory organs on the fourth pair of legs, which consists of two parts and have swollen tips with a tuft of additional sensory filaments that are structurally similar to those found on the cephalic appendages. In addition, Batillipes ampullus sp. nov. does not have noticeable lateral body projections between the legs, and the body ends in a semi-circular tail appendage. Based on the obtained data on the nucleotide sequences of 18S rDNA and 28S rDNA, the distinction between the new species was confirmed.
