| abstract | Litarachna divergens was introduced by Walter (Intern. Revue Hydrobiol. Hydrogr. 14:1–54, 1925) for specimens collected and described by Von Schaub (Sitzungsber. Kaiserl. Akad. Wiss. Math.-Naturwiss. Cl. 98:163–179, 1889) from Trieste (Adriatic Sea). Since then, this species has appeared regularly in faunistic lists of marine species living in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Sea of Japan. As the holotype of L. divergens is lost, and the original description is of poor quality and insufficient to ascertain its relationships, we consider it a species incerta. Litarachna thetis n. sp. is established as a new name for previously reported populations under the name L. divergens from the Sea of Japan (Uchida, J. Fac. Sci. Hokkaido Univ. Sapporo (s. 6) Zool 4(4):183–195, 1935) and from South Korea assigned by Pešić et al. (Syst. Appl Acarol. 13:70–74, 2008) to L. denhami. Finally, we provide a key for the three species treated in this paper. |