Eastern Atlantic Prochaetodermatidae revisited: the nonsynonymy of Prochaetoderma boucheti Scheltema & Ivanov (Aplacophora)

Abstract

Two morphologically similar species in the aplacophoran family Prochaetodermatidae co-occur on the continental shelf of the eastern Atlantic. The two species were described by Scheltema & Ivanov, 1 deposited in the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, and named Prochaetoderma boucheti (from the northern Bay of Biscay, 101‐860 m; Iberian Slope, 250‐370 m; and Mediterranean Sea, 60‐489 m) and Claviderma tricosum (sympatric with P. boucheti in box core samples from a single station in the northern Bay of Biscay, 101 m). While the paper describing these two new species was in press, two other new species descriptions of eastern Atlantic Prochaetodermatidae appeared in print, 2 Prochaetoderma iberogallicum Salvini-Plawen (from the southern Bay of Biscay, 93‐143 m) and Prochaetoderma breve Salvini-Plawen (from the western Mediterranean off Malaga, 197‐211 m). Suspecting overlap, the type material of the two species described by Salvini-Plawen was examined rather hastily by Scheltema and a note added to the page proofs synonymizing both P. boucheti and P. breve with P. iberogallicum. At present Ivanov is visiting the laboratory of Scheltema and the type material of P. iberogallicum and P. breve has been carefully re-examined by both of us. The story is more complicated than first thought.