The marine calanoid Calanoides carinatus s.l. (Krøyer, 1848) is a dominant species in productive coastal upwelling regions on the western coast of Africa, the east coast of South America and off Somalia in the Indian Ocean. However, its first description is very short and based on a single female specimen collected in the south-western Atlantic with ambiguity as to the type locality. As a consequence, it appears that closely related, but undescribed, species are still being identified as C. carinatus. We re-describe and illustrate the adult female and male of C. carinatus s.s. from specimens collected from Brazil. We currently restrict the distribution of this species sensu stricto to the coast of Brazil. Nevertheless, it may be distributed along the whole east coast of South America but confirmation of this conclusion awaits genetic evidence. Additional information is presented on the morphology of C. macrocarinatus (Brodsky, 1972) from off the coast of New Zealand, and Brazilian specimens of C. carinatus are compared with C. macrocarinatus. We discuss the status of Calanoides from other localities and consider the availability of names for species we predict may be differentiated from C. carinatus s.s. in the future.