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The shelled pteropod (sea butterfly)  Limacina helicina  is currently recognised as a species complex comprising two sub-species and at least five “forma”. However, at the species level it is considered to be bipolar, occurring in both the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. Due to its aragonite shell and polar distribution  L. helicina  is particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification. As a key indicator of the acidification process, and a major component of polar ecosystems,  L. helicina  has become a focus for acidification research. New observations that taxonomic groups may respond quite differently to acidification prompted us to reassess the taxonomic status of this important species. We found a 33.56% (±0.09) difference in cytochrome  c  oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences between  L. helicina  collected from the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. This degree of separation is sufficient for ordinal level taxonomic separation in other organisms and provides strong evidence for the Arctic and Antarctic populations of  L. helicina  differing at least at the species level. Recent research has highlighted substantial physiological differences between the poles for another supposedly bipolar pteropod species,  Clione limacina . Given the large genetic divergence between Arctic and Antarctic  L. helicina  populations shown here, similarly large physiological differences may exist between the poles for the  L. helicina  species group. Therefore, in addition to indicating that  L. helicina  is in fact not bipolar, our study demonstrates the need for acidification research to take into account the possibility that the  L. helicina  species group may not respond in the same way to ocean acidification in Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems.

Poles Apart: The “Bipolar” Pteropod Species Limacina helicina Is Genetically Distinct Between the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans