Morphologically tortured: taxonomic placement of an Antarctic springtail (Collembola: Isotomidae) misguided by morphology and ecology MARK I. STEVENS &CYRILLE A. D’HAESE Submitted: 8 March 2016 Accepted: 6 July 2016 doi:10.1111/zsc.12204 Stevens, M. I., D’Haese, C. A. (2016). Morphologically tortured: taxonomic placement of an Antarctic springtail (Collembola: Isotomidae) misguided by morphology and ecology. —Zoologica Scripta, 00: 000–000. An endemic springtail from northern Victoria Land, Antarctica, was recently moved from Desoria to the new genus Chionobora, erected for a new species C. amila from lakes in the central highland plateau of Tasmania. This new combination for klovstadi was based on characters similar to both species (although not definitive) and an apparent preference for aquatic habitats. Here we show that neither of these inferences are valid. We sampled from two lake localities to obtain C. amila, and in doing so, we describe its habitat as riparian, not aquatic. We compared specimens of C. amila with klovstadi within a phylogeny using three genes (mtDNA COI, 18S rDNA, D1-D5 of 28S rDNA) for 59 Isotominae terminals. We show that klovstadi is not closely related to the genus Chionobora that has closest affini- ties to the genus Isotomurus. As previously identified, klovstadi has no close affinities to any existing genus in Isotominae. Based on additional ecological, morphological and molecular evidence, we erect a new genus for klovstadi, Kaylathalia gen. n. Corresponding author: Mark I. Stevens, South Australian Museum, North Terrace, GPO Box 234, SA 5000, Adelaide, Australia, E-mail: mark.stevens@samuseum.sa.gov.au Mark I. Stevens, South Australian Museum, North Terrace, GPO Box 234, SA 5000, Adelaide, Australia and School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, SA 5000, Adelaide, Australia. E-mail: mark.stevens@samuseum.sa.gov.au Cyrille A. D’Haese, Department Systematics & Evolution, Mus  eum National d’Histoire Naturelle, MECADEV, UMR 7179 CNRS MNHN, CP50 Entomology, 45 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. E-mail: dhaese@mnhn.fr One of the first Collembola to have been described from the Antarctic continent was Isotoma klovstadi by Carpenter (1902) from Robertson Bay. Since that time, numerous col- lections have been made and the species is known from a wide range throughout northern Victoria Land in the Ross Sea region (Stevens et al. 2006, 2007). When all subgenera of Isotoma s. str. were raised to genera (Potapov 2001), it was not possible to place klovstadi so it remained in Isotoma s. str. The species was later redescribed by Stevens et al. (2006), after it was incorrectly moved to the genus Gnathisotoma, and was transferred provisionally to the genus Desoria due to difficulties in its placement. More recently, Greenslade & Potapov (2015) suggested it had a close relationship to a new aquatic species from the central highlands plateau in Tasmania, and transferred klovstadi to the new genus Chionobora, erected for the newly described Tasmanian species C. amila Greenslade & Potapov, 2015. Based on twelve morphological characters, they suggested that klovstadi was more related to Chionobora than it was to Desoria (Table 1 and Fig. 19, in Greenslade & Potapov 2015). Our molecular data presented here and consideration of the morphological data from Greenslade & Potapov (2015), Potapov (2001), Carapelli et al. (2001) and Stevens et al. (2006) clearly show that klovstadi does not belong to either Gnathisotoma, Isotoma s. str., Desoria, nor does it belong to Chionobora. Our molecular data and consideration of mor- phological data indicate that it does not have affinities to any currently existing genus, and here we formally erect the new genus Kaylathalia gen. n. for klovstadi (Carpenter, 1902). ª 2016 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1 Zoologica Scripta