Mesostoma lingua (Abildgaard, 1789) Graff 1882
Creators: name: Steenkiste, Niels Van
name: Tessens, Bart
name: Krznaric, Kathleen
name: Artois, Tom
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Platyhelminthes
Rhabditophora
Rhabdocoela
Typhloplanidae
Mesostoma
Mesostoma lingua

description: Mesostoma lingua (Abildgaard, 1789) Graff, 1882
syn. Planaria lingua Abildgaard, 1789
syn. Planaria ehrenbergii Focke, 1836
syn. Mesostomum lingua Schmidt, 1848 syn. Turbella cyathus Diesing, 1862
syn. Turbella lingua Diesing, 1862
syn. Mesostoma cyathus Schmidt, 1858 syn. Mesostoma chromobactrum Braun, 1885 syn. Mesostoma cyanthus Dörner, 1902 syn. Mesostoma sigmoideum Plotnikow, 1905
New locality in Spain. Doñana National Park, Provincia de Huelva, Spain (36°57’28”N, 6°26’59”W). Laguna del Sopeton near Casa del Puntal: large open pond with many filiform algae and zooplankton (mainly Daphnia sp.) (25/03/2008).
Other localities in Spain. Central areas (Sierra de Guadarrama and river Tajo basin, see Gamo & Noreña- Janssen 1998); Alburquerque (Provincia de Badajoz, Extremadura) and Cáceres (Provincia de Cáceres, Extremadura) (Noreña et al. 1999); Pla, Valencia (Provincia de Valencia, Comunidad Valenciana) and Almenara (Provincia de Castellón, Comunidad Valenciana) (Gieysztor 1931).
New localities outside Spain. Palearctic: Département du Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France. Dry mud from a temporal pond provided by Dr. Alain Thiéry (09/2007) and hatched at Hasselt University (Belgium) (10/ 2007).
Nearctic: Cootes Paradise, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (43°16’01”N, 79°55’54”W). Submersed and floating aquatic vegetation in a ditch adjacent to Spencer Creek (14/05/2009).
Known distribution. Widespread throughout the Palearctic: many localities in Europe, Western Russia, Siberia, Central Asia, Western Tibet and Japan (see Luther 1963 and Heitkamp & Schrade-Mock 1978 for localities and references), Western Europe (UK: West Midlands and North Wales; the Netherlands: Friesland) (Young 1970, 1972a, 1973), Central Europe (Germany: Thuringia, Lake Constance, Franconia, South Lower Saxony; Austria: Burgenland) (Kraus 1965; Pörner 1966; Rixen 1968; Bauchhenss 1971; Heitkamp 1981, 1982, 1988), Eastern Europe (Romania: Wallachian Plain, littoral freshwater lakes of the Black Sea, Danube Delta) (Mack-Fira 1968, 1970b), Western Russia (Yaroslavl Oblast, Urals, Northern Dvina River and upper Volga River) (Birstein 1991; Rogozin 1996; Korgina 1999, 2002; Kotikova 2001), Siberia and the Russian Far East (Rogozin 1996), North Africa (Algeria) (Gauthier 1929; Schrade 1974); Nearctic: Greenland (Steinböck 1932); Afrotropic: many localities in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) (see Beauchamp 1953; Young 1976; Young & Young 1976); Neotropic: Argentina (Noreña-Janssen 1995).
Material. Many live animals and serially-sectioned specimens from the new locality in Spain. Studies on live animals from France and several sectioned specimens from Canada.
Remarks. Adult specimens were highly variable in length (most between 2 and 5 mm) and were milky white to pink. Body shape is bluntly rounded anteriorly and somewhat bluntly pointed posteriorly. Eggs were present on both sides of the body. Internal organization as described by several authors (e.g. Luther 1963; Noreña-Janssen & Faubel 1992).
Mesostoma lingua (Abildgaard, 1789) Graff, 1882 was captured with a small plankton net pulled through algae and vegetation, and was very abundant (more than 50 individuals in three throws). It seems to be a widespread species (Palearctic, Nearctic, Neotropic, Afrotropic), although records from the Oriental, Australasian, Pacific and Antarctic regions are presently lacking (see Noreña-Janssen & Faubel 1992; Noreña-Janssen 1995).
description: Published as part of Steenkiste, Niels Van, Tessens, Bart, Krznaric, Kathleen & Artois, Tom, 2011, Dalytyphloplanida (Platyhelminthes: Rhabdocoela) from Andalusia, Spain, with the description of four new species, pp. 1-29 in Zootaxa 2791 on page 8, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.201106