Three interesting Cyprididae (Ostracoda) from Western Australia

Abstract

The paper contributes to the systematics of the family Cyprididae and to a description of the general ostracod biodiversity in Australia. Riocypris hinzeae sp. nov., is described from wells in the Murchison region (Western Australia). This is the second species described in the genus, previously known from South America. Another two species are transferred into this genus: Riocypris fitzroyi (McKenzie, 1966) comb. nov. and R. fontana (Graf, 1931) comb. nov. Cyprinotus cingalensis Brady, 1886, collected from wells in the Pilbara Region (Western Australia), is redescribed. Populations of some other described Cyprinotus species show extreme variability in morphology and length of the carapace and the following species are thus synonymized with C. cingalensis: C. dahli Sars, 1896; C. uenoi Brehm, 1936; C. kimberleyensis McKenzie, 1966 and C. edwardi McKenzie, 1978. The morphological variability in carapace shape and uniformity of the internal morphology of the species Bennelongia australis s. l. (Brady, 1886), here reported from the Murchison Region, confirms the need for a revision of the genus Bennelongia because correct identification of many representatives of this genus is almost impossibl