Lepechinella eupraxiella EUPRAXIELLA BARNARD 1973

LEPECHINELLA EUPRAXIELLA BARNARD, 1973

Lepechinella arctica Gurjanova, 1951: 674–678. Lepechinella eupraxiella Barnard, 1973: 17.

Type locality: 78°02’N, 09°12’E (West of Svalbard), depth unknown; station sampled by the Icebreaker Sadko.

Remarks: Lepechinella eupraxiella Barnard, 1973 was not encountered in samples from the IceAGE expeditions.

It appears that the validation of Lepechinella eupraxiella is problematic. Known only from the original illustration by Gurjanova (1951) under the name L. arctica, Barnard’s (1973) subsequently described the species based on literature assessment. Barnard nominated the specimen illustrated in Gurjanova’s figure 465 as the type material, which provides only a partial illustration of the specimen. The species is known only from a single individual collected by Icebreaker Sadko in Polar Basin (‘Полярный бассейн’). Given the statement of Gurjanova (1951, p. 675 and p. 678) that it fully agreed with the description and figure by Schellenberg (1925) of L. arctica, the sympatric distribution of both species as well as the erection of the species only on the basis of single figure one cannot exclude that L. eupraxiella is a junior synonym of L. arctica. The study of the holotype of L. eupraxiella may help solving this taxonomic problem.

Depth range: Unknown.

Distribution: West of Svalbard (Gurjanova, 1951; Barnard, 1973) (Fig. 7A; Tables 1, 2).