Marine tardigrades from South Carolina, USA

Until now, there have been only three studies of marine tardigrades from South Carolina, USA. The Fall 2015 invertebrate zoology class from Warren Wilson College collected four sediment samples from Huntington Beach State Park: shallow beach sand, deep beach sand, shallow salt marsh sediment, and deep salt marsh sediment. No tardigrades were found in the salt marsh, but two species were found in the beach samples. Batillipes pennaki Marcus, 1946 was found in shallow and deep beach sand, and three specimens of a potentially new species of Stygarctus Schulz, 1951 were found in the deep beach sand at groundwater level. Subsequent collections to find more specimens of Stygarctus have been unsuccessful so far, but a third species record, Orzeliscus belopus du Bois-Reymond Marcus, 1952, sensu lato was verified. Three eutardigrade species were also found in the beach sand, but we presume these were “accidentals” from terrestrial environments. A summary of known marine tardigrades from SC is presented