Scapholeberis smirnovi Garibian, Neretina, Taylor & Kotov, 2020 (Fig. 4 D–I). An abundant neustonic species occurring in all types of water bodies in both spring and winter. Ephippial females found in rice fields (S27, A28) and in two ponds (S32, A29) possessed dorsal keels on the ephippium (fig. 4 E) specific for the taxon. S. smirnovi was described from material from the Russian Far East, Korea and Japan (Garibian et al. 2020). It is sibling-species of S. kingii Sars, 1888 (syn. S. kingi, Sars 1903) described from Australia and earlier presumed to be pantropical. However, the recent taxonomic status of East and South-East Asian populations, earlier identified as S. kingii, is doubtful. S. kingii and S. smirnovi have identical morphology of parthenogenetic females, and can be differentiated morphologically only by shape of the ephippium. Our data clarify the taxonomic status of populations from Central China, suggesting all records of S. kingii (Xiang et al. 2015, as S. kingi) belong to S. smirnovi instead. For a detailed description see Garibian et al. (2020).

Published as part of Dadykin, Ivan A., Sinev, Artem Y., Gu, Yangliang & Han, Bo-Ping, 2023, Spring and autumn fauna of Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) in the center of East Asia plain: Hunan and Hubei Provinces of China, pp. 1-25 in Zootaxa 5380 (1) on page 11, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5380.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10212806