Cryptocopoides Sieg 1976

Genus Cryptocopoides Sieg, 1976

Magotanais Guerrero-Kommritz & Bła ż ewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004, new synonymy

Remarks. The genus Magotanais was erected for M. pruinosus Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004, a species from the Antarctic. Their species accords entirely with the genus Cryptocopoides, even though those authors only compared it with the families Colletteidae Larsen & Wilson, 2002 and Tanaellidae Larsen & Wilson, 2002. For this reason we synonymize Magotanais with Cryptocopoides.

Cryptocopoides itself has a confused history, since Sieg (1977), showing a lack of understanding of allopatry and of the absence of any significant dispersive ability in these taxa, synonymized the two species described at that time, C. arctica (Hansen, 1887) and C. antarctica (Vanhöffen, 1914). Sieg’s (loc cit.) redescription of “ C. arctica ” is of limited use as it was based on material from both type collections, from the Arctic and the Antarctic. It is also evident from the original descriptions of these species that, in comparison with C. arctica sensu Hansen, C. antarctica has a shorter carapace (as long as wide rather than significantly longer than wide), a proportionately longer anterior half of the pereon, and a proportionately shorter distal antennular article.

With the Pacific species described recently by McLelland (2007), there are four previously-described species of the genus Cryptocopoides, viz: C. arctica, C. antarctica, C. pruinosus (Guerrero-Kommritz & Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, 2004) comb. nov. and C. pacificus McLelland, 2007.