Is Copytus Skogsberg, 1939 (Crustacea: Ostracoda) a neocytherideid? With description of a new family and two new species
Author
Coimbra, João Carlos
Author
Bergue, Cristianini Trescastro
Author
Ramos, Maria Inês Feijó
text
Zootaxa
2020
2020-01-29
4729
2
177
194
journal article
24222
10.11646/zootaxa.4729.2.2
b44745ed-b90a-4b62-b636-23c48c56471a
1175-5326
3632249
EC42F789-C869-4551-998E-CC819044C775
Copytus fusiformis
(
Yassini, 1979
)
.
Copytus fusiformis
(
Yassini, 1979
)
was originally described as
Neocytherideis
from the Pliocene of SW
Algeria
and subsequently recorded from the Recent off
Morocco
(
Llano 1981
),
Senegal
(
Carbonel
et al.
1983
) and
the Gambia
(
Witte 1993
). The latter author changed the name to
Copytus
, because it has the cluster of four adductor scars in a small circular group so distinctive of
Copytus
, although the very elongate cylindrical shape with a narrowly pointed anterior margin below mid-height being perhaps more common in
Neocytherideis
. Besides, the hinge line is very long and not confined to the posterior half of the length.
Witte (1993)
notes the “remarkable similarity” of this species to Indo-Pacific and Australian species of the genus such as
C. rara
McKenzie, 1967
,
Copytus
sp. cf.
C. rara
(in
Jain 1978
)
and
C. tubulata
(nomen nudum) in
Labutis (1977)
. The Labutis’ species (pl. 11: 11; pl. 23: 6–7), with a small circular cluster of adductor scars and adont hinge, clearly belongs to
Copytus
.
Witte (1993)
also registered some similarity to
Copytus
sp. n. of
Bertels & Martínez (1990)
from the onshore Quaternary of southern
Buenos Aires Province
,
Argentina
. Although this Argentinian species is externally similar to
C. fusiformis
, it is smaller (l =
0.80 mm
) and less elongate, and is in the list of synonymies of
Neocytherideis impudicus
[
impudica
]
Whatley
et al.
, 1998
. It is also noteworthy that
Copytus
sp. of
Bertels
et al.
(1982)
, recovered from the Quaternary of southernmost
Brazil
, is another junior synonym of
N. impudica
.
The present authors without hesitation refer
Neocytherideis boomeri
Dingle, 1992
to the genus
Copytus
on the grounds of its very long hinge without terminal teeth and subcircular aggregate of four adductor scars, and we also consider it a junior synonym of
C. fusiformis
(
Yassini, 1979
)
. The South African material is very similar in outline, ornamentation and size (l = 0.95–1.00 mm) to the material of
C. fusiformis
from
Gambia
(l =
0.93–1.02 mm
).