Gordius jorriti Schmidt-Rhaesa & Schwarz, 2016, n. sp.
Creators: name: Schmidt-Rhaesa, Andreas
name: Schwarz, Christian J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Nematomorpha
Gordioida
Gordioidea
Gordiidae
Gordius
Gordius jorriti

description: Gordius jorriti n. sp.
(Figure 2)
Holotype. One male from type locality, to be deposited in the PNM.
Etymology. The species name “ jorriti ” is chosen after one son of the senior author, Jorrit.
Type locality. Northwest Panay Peninsula, Sibaliw Research Station, Buruanga, Aklan, Panay Island, Philippines (11° 49.131' N, 121° 58.246' E), ~ 512 m; primary forest, found in a Barber trap; collected by C. Schwitzke on October 29, 2011.
Description. The holotype and only specimen is 345 mm long and measures 0.8 mm in width. It is dark brown in color, and a dark collar is present.
The cuticle is generally smooth (Fig. 2 A); high magnification reveals a surface structure including minute bristles and some spine-like structures not exceeding 1 µm (Fig. 2 B). The cloacal opening at the posterior end is not clearly visible, as it is filled with some material (Fig. 2 C). The postcloacal crescent is parabolic (Fig. 2 C), its anterior edge is 11 µm behind the cloacal opening. The two arms of the crescent extend onto the tail lobes, the maximal width of the postcloacal crescent is 290 µm. Anterior to the cloacal opening is a semicircular row of bristles (Fig. 2 C). The region around the cloacal opening is somewhat deeper than the remaining parts, with a kind of ridge present at the row of bristles. Such depressions are probably artifacts after fixation with dehydrating reagents such as ethanol. The maximum width of the row of bristles is 388 µm, it is therefore broader than the postcloacal crescent. The posterior ends of the row are at the level of the anterior part of the postcloacal crescent. The vertex of the row is 83 µm anterior of the cloacal opening. The row contains longer unbranched bristles and shorter branched ones (Fig. 2 D). Up to 6 branches were counted. On the posterior end of the tail lobes, stout bristles are present (Fig. 2 E). Some large artefactual structures (labelled “art” in Fig. 2 C) occur in a few places on the posterior end.
Remarks. A row of bristles anterior to the cloaca is present only in two species, Gordius paranensis Camerano, 1892 and Gordius difficilis Smith, 1994. Both species differ in the shape of the postcloacal crescent, which is angled in G. difficilis but round in G. paranensis. While G. difficilis occurs in North America (Schmidt- Rhaesa et al. 2003), G. paranensis is distributed in South America (see De Villalobos et al. 2005, 2009) and in New Zealand (see Schmidt-Rhaesa et al. 2000, Schmidt-Rhaesa 2008). As far as is known, the row of bristles in G. paranensis contains unbranched bristles (Schmidt-Rhaesa et al. 2000, De Villalobos et al. 2009) or a few bristles with two branches (De Villalobos et al. 2005). This is a clear difference from G. jorriti, which has a number of strongly branched bristles. Another difference is the shape of the postcloacal crescent, which distinctly extends onto the tail lobes in G. jorriti, but is arcuate and only slightly extends onto the tail lobes in G. paranensis (Schmidt- Rhaesa et al. 2000, De Villalobos et al. 2005). Therefore, we regard G. jorriti as a distinct species.
description: Published as part of Schmidt-Rhaesa, Andreas & Schwarz, Christian J., 2016, Nematomorpha from the Philippines, with description of two new species, pp. 246-260 in Zootaxa 4158 (2) on page 247, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4158.2.6, http://zenodo.org/record/266905