Starting off from a Google search we came across WoRMS.
No, this isn't part of a fisherman's equipment box but the wonderful
World Register of
Marine Species (see source below).
WoRMS is listing 14 species within the genus Florarctus:
(01) Florarctus acer Renaud-Mornant, 1989
(02) Florarctus antillensis Van der Land, 1968
(03) Florarctus asper Renaud-Mornant, 1989
(04) Florarctus cervinus Renaud-Mornant, 1987
(05) Florarctus cinctus Renaud-Mornant, 1976
(06) Florarctus glareolus Noda, 1987
(07) Florarctus heimi Delamare Deboutteville & Renaud-Mornant, 1965
(08) Florarctus hulingsi Renaud-Mornant, 1976
(09) Florarctus kwoni Chang & Rho, 1997
(10) Florarctus pulcher Grimaldi De Zio et al., 1999
(11) Florarctus salvati Delamare Deboutteville & Renaud-Mornant, 1965
(12) Florarctus stellatus Renaud-Mornant, 1989
(13) Florarctus vulcanius Renaud-Mornant, 1987
(14) Florarctus wunai Fujimoto, 2015
According to this the first species within the genus Florarctus appeared as late as 1965
with the first two members being Florarctus heimi and Florarctus salvati.
When keeping in mind the tinyness and the poor contrast of those tardigrades we are not surprised
that they were found as late as that. And from the philosophical point of view it appears quite thrilling
how little was known about all those billions of Florarctus sp. individuals in the 1960s.
Thanks to WoRMS we do know the names of 14 marine Florarctus species which are known nowadays - for free.
And as a visual taxonomy helper we can recommend the
Tardigrade image collection by Paul Bartels
from the Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.
There you can click your way through Florarctus sp. portraits and compare them with our
Krapanj tardigrade video. Furthermore it becomes obvious that those nice line drawings presented there
are much superior to our own photographic and video documentation.
Well, don't wait any longer. Have a look at Prof. Paul Bartels' treasure box! Now.
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