* synonyms: Ectinosoma couceiroi Jakobi & Nogueira, 1960 (Lang, 1965); Ectinosoma paradentatum Bozic, 1965 (in Wells & Rao, 1987)

Species incertae or nomina nuda: E. n.sp. aff. compressum Sars sensu Klie (1949); E. curvifrons Sars, 1927 (in Lang, 1948); E. porrectum 1927 (in Lang, 1948); E. ischnum (in Lang, 1948); E. henneguyi Labbé, 1926; E. spec.I-V Mielke, 1979; E. spec. Gruppe A Mielke, 1979 (not in Bodin, 1988); E. tholomiges Jakobi, 1954; E. tholophilos Jakobi, 1954.

The genus Halectinosoma Vervoort, 1962 is a large group composed of about 70 nominal species within the family Ectinosomatidae (Soyer 1972, Huys & Bodin 1997, Cl´ement & Moore 2000, Karanovic & Pesce 2001, Wells 2007, Huys 2009, Boxshall et al. 2010, Sua´ rez-Morales & Fuentes-Rein´es 2015). Initially it was described as a subgenus of the genus Ectinosoma, with the following short diagnosis (Lang, 1944): "Exp. P.5 mit 3 Rand- and 1 Flachenborste, welch letztere evtl. fehlen kann." Exactly the same was repeated later (Lang, 1948), but unfortunately Lang too omitted to designate the type species. This was done by Vervoort (1962), who designated Ectinosoma sarsi Boeck, 1872. Lang (1965) erected Halectinosoma at generic level, although he did not mention Vervoort's designation of the type species. Unfortunately Halectinosoma sarsi (Boeck, 1972) was placed as incertae sedis by Clement & Moore (1995), so the genus is now without the type species.

Lang's (1944, 1948) division of Halectinosoma into the "sarsi"group (where the third exopodite segment of second, third and fourth swimming legs carried 3 outer spines) and the "curticorne"-group (where the third exopodite segment of at least fourth swimming leg bore 2 outer spines) was later (Lang, 1965) considered unworkable.

Although the detailed morphology is quite conservative within the genus some of its species have obviously been misplaced and should be referred to other genera. One of them, H. porosum Wells, 1967, was formally transferred to the genus Ectinosoma by Huys & Bodin (1997); some other probably belong to yet undescribed genera. However, the systematic of the genus Halectinosoma is problematic and species identification is very difficult due to the inadequacy of most of the descriptions in the literature (Clement & Moore, 1995). This genus is indeed much closer to the genus Pseudobradya than to Ectinosoma, from which it was properly divided.

One of the characters that is traditionally used to distinguish Halectinosoma from Pseudobradya is the condensed maxillary endopodite in the former (Huys & Bodin, 1997). Also, a position of the inner setae on the maxillary basis can be used as a very good distinguishing character between these two genera (they are always situated near the top of the basis in Pseudobradya). Probably the subgeneric status of Halectinosoma (of the genus Pseudobradya) could be more appropriate, but its generic status should be retained because it has already been the subgenus (of the genus Ectinosoma) and this could cause great taxonomic confusion.

"Species of Halectinosoma Lang, 1944 are often dominant members of the harpacticoid copepod assemblage of marine sediments and yet their identification is notoriously difficult.

Differences between species within this large genus of 58 species (Huys et al., 1996) are often subtle and a lack of appreciation of this subtlety has caused much taxonomic confusion and the production of descriptions which, in many cases, do not permit the accurate identification of species. Clement & Moore (1995) commented a revision of Halectinosoma with a reappraisal of H. sarsi (Boeck, 1872) and descriptions of 11 related species. In this paper was reexamined H. herdmani (Scott & Scott, 1894) and described a group of related species which share the distinctive, elongate body shape of H. herdmani.

Several of these species can be found living sympatrically, generally in sandy sediments, and it is highly probable that considerable misidentification of these species has occurred in the past" (from: Clement & Moore, 2000).