A New Species in the Rare Genus Mesocrista (Eutardigrada) from New York (U S A)

During a recent survey of tardigrades at the Cumming Nature Center (owned by the Rochester Museum & Science Center; New York, U S A), a new species of the rare and oligospecific genus Mesocrista was discovered. We provide an integrative description of this new species based on morphology and genetics (four standard DNA markers used in eutardigrade taxonomy). Mesocrista ojagwaji sp. nov. exhibits a combination of characters intermediate between those of M. spitzbergensis (Richters, 1903) and M. revelata Gąsiorek, Stec, Morek, Zawierucha, Kaczmarek, Lachowska-Cierlik, and Michalczyk, 2016, but the conducted phylogenetic analyses indicated that it is a sister species of the latter. Subtle morphological disparities with regard to M. revelata suggest a recent divergence event and deliver a new case of pseudocryptic tardigrade species.