| Echiniscus testudo | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Tardigrada |
| Class: | Heterotardigrada |
| Order: | Echiniscoidea |
| Family: | Echiniscidae |
| Genus: | Echiniscus |
| Species: | E. testudo
|
| Binomial name | |
| Echiniscus testudo (Doyère, 1840)
| |
| Synonyms[5][6] | |
Echiniscus testudo is a cosmopolitan species of tardigrade.
The species was described by Louis Michel François Doyère in 1840; he placed it in the genus Emydium.[1]
G. Ramazzotti and W. Maucci classified E. filamentos mongoliensis Iharos, 1973[4] as a synonym of E. testudo in 1983; this was followed by other tardigradologists.[5] In 2017, Piotr Gąsiorek and colleagues restored it as a distinct taxon and elevated it to species level: E. mongoliensis.[7]
Gąsiorek and colleagues also classified E. filamentosus Plate, 1888[8] and E. glaber Bartoš, 1937 as junior synonyms of E. testudo.[7]
It is found throughout most of the Palaearctic,[9] and has been recorded in all continents except Antarctica and Australia.[10][11] Most reports are Holarctic.[12] Locations where it has been recorded include: Denmark, Egypt, the Faroe Islands, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Israel, Italy, Morocco,[9] Iberia,[13] Mongolia,[14] and China.[10][15]
Doyère based his description off specimens collected in Paris.[1] The neotype designated by Gąsiorek and colleagues was collected in Paris's Montmartre Cemetery.[7] The type localities of the junior synonyms E. bellermanni and E. inermis are both in Germany: the former is Greifswald,[2] and the latter is the Taunus mountains near Frankfurt.[3]
