New Reports of Gastrotricha for the North-Eastern Ukraine

Abstract

Gastrotricha is poor known phylum of small metazoans. Information about Ukrainian gastrotrichs’ fauna is old. In total 9 species are reported in this paper. Chaetonotus (Hystricochaetonotus) hystrix, Chaetonotus (Primochaetus) heideri,Chaetonotus (Zonochaeta) bisacer, Lepidodermella minor minor, Lepidodermella squamata, Ichthydium maximum and Haltidytes festinans  are new to the Ukraine fauna. This investigation is giving also additional information for Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) maximus, Chaetonotus(Hystricochaetonotus) macrochaetus, which have been previously reported to the Ukraine fauna but are new for Kharkiv oblast. We provide short description of all species and some ecology aspects.