Cypridopsis vidua

(3) Cypridopsis vidua (O.F. Müller, 1776) and Cypridopsis okeechobei Furtos, 1936 syn. nov. Martens & Savatenalinton (2011) sank Cypridopsis okeechobei Furtos, 1936 into synonymy of Cypridopsis vidua (O.F. Müller, 1776), but without further discussion. Meisch et al. (2019a) maintained this synonymy. In both cases, this action implied that the population of C. okeechobei, described from the Lake Okeechobe in Florida (USA) constituted the first sexual (or mixed) population of C. vidua. This remained controversial. Martens et al. (2023) reported on the first sexual (mixed) population of C. vidua (as identified under that name) from a small artificial pond from Woods Hole on Cape Cod (Ma, USA). Various elements of morphology showed that this population indeed belonged to C. vidua and that the observed males are almost certainly functional, but are also difficult to distinguish from females, which might explain that they may have been overlooked in the past. Indeed, less than a year after the publication of Martens et al. (2023), a second sexual population of C. vidua was reported from Southwest China (Zhai et al. 2023). In addition, Martens et al. (2023) identified several other sexual Cypridopsis species from North America which might be synonymous with C. vidua. The morphology of the prehensile palps, and especially of the second segments, were not always identical between these populations, but these limbs are three-dimensional and their position in the slides after dissection might sometimes show deviation in morphology. On the other hand, most (all?) populations from North America which were later reported as C. okeechobei, had a different valve morphology and were therefore wrongly identified. Raza et al. (2023) reported the latter species from Pakistan, but without illustrations or descriptions, so this record is not retained here.