Taxonomy
The name Triops refers to the appearance of three eyes, from the Greek τρία (tría) meaning "three" and ὤψ (ops) meaning "eye". Franz Paula von Schrank was the first author to use the genus name Triops, coining it in his 1803 work on the fauna of Bavaria. Their German name was Dreyauge, which means 'three-eye' in English. He collected and described specimens from the same locality in Regensburg from which Schäffer, another naturalist who had studied the Notostraca, obtained his specimens in the 1750s. However, other authors, starting with Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, had adopted the genus name Apus for the organisms Schrank had named Triops.
Ludwig Keilhack used the genus name Triops in his 1909 field identification key of the freshwater fauna of Germany. He suggested that the genus name Apus be replaced by Triops Schrank since an avian genus had already been described by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli under the name Apus. However, Robert Gurney preferred the name Apus Schäffer. He suggested that the name '...Triops Schrank, may be returned to the obscurity from which it was unearthed'. This controversy continued and was not resolved until the 1950s.
In his 1955 taxonomic review of the Notostraca, Alan R. Longhurst supported Keilhack's genus name Triops over Apus. Longhurst provided historical evidence to support this position. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) followed Longhurst in their 1958 ruling on the usage and origin of the genus names Triops and Apus. They rejected the genus name Apus and instead recognized the genus name Triops Schrank, 1803 (ICZN name no. 1246).
Although the taxonomy of the genus has not been reviewed since 1955, the following species are recognised:
- Triops australiensis
- Triops baeticus
- Triops cancriformis
- Triops emeritensis
- Triops gadensis
- Triops granarius
- Triops longicaudatus
- Triops mauritanicus
- Triops newberryi
- Triops vicentinus
Triops mauritanicus was considered a subspecies of T. cancriformis by Longhurst in 1955, but was given full species status again by Korn et al. in 2006.
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