Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, 139, 305–313. With 3 figures © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, 139, 305–313 305 Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKZOJZoological Journal of the Linnean Society0024-4082The Lin- nean Society of London, 2003? 2003 1392 305313 Original Article TWO NEW SPECIES OF VESTALENULA (OSTRACODA, DARWINULIDAE)R. L. PINTO ET AL. *Corresponding author: E-mail. rlpinto@ib.usp.br On two new species of the genus Vestalenula Rossetti & Martens, 1998 (Crustacea, Ostracoda, Darwinulidae) from semiterrestrial habitats in São Paulo State (Brazil) R. L. PINTO 1, *, C. E. F. ROCHA 1 and K. MARTENS 2,3 1 Departamento de Zoologia-IBUSP, Rua do Matão, trav. 14, n°101, CEP05508–900 São Paulo–SP, Brazil 2 Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Freshwater Biology, Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels, Belgium 3 University of Ghent, Department of Biology, K. L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B9000 Gent, Belgium Received March 2002; accepted for publication February 2003 Two new species of semiterrestrial darwinulid ostracods, both belonging to the pagliolii-lineage of the genus Ves- talenula, are described here. Vestalenula botocuda sp. nov., collected from moist mud in a rain forest remnant, is an enigmatic species, as it combines valve characters of the boteai-lineage with soft part features of the danielopoli-lineage within the genus. Vestalenula irajai sp. nov., found in several types of semiterrestrial habi- tats, is closely related to V. pagliolii in its soft part morphology, but has more elongated valves, with straight dorsal and ventral margins running parallel to each other. The description of these new species confirms the relatively high levels of endemicity and diversity in Southern Hemisphere Vestalenula and challenges earlier classifications of this group. © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, 139, 305-313. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: ancient asexuals – morphology – South America – Southern Hemisphere – taxonomy. INTRODUCTION Darwinulidae are so-called ancient asexuals (Butlin & Griffiths, 1993; Judson & Normark, 1996), organisms which have persisted over geologically long periods of time without sexual reproduction. There appear to have been no bisexual populations for at least 150 Myr (Martens, 1998). All living Darwinuloidea belong to one subfamily, the Darwinulinae Brady & Norman, 1889, although the Palaeozoic–Recent fossil record of this superfamily comprises representatives of eight sub- families in two families. For a long time, Recent darwinulids, which are exclusively nonmarine, were treated as a marginal group and little attention was devoted to them. How- ever, their recognition as putative ancient asexuals initiated renewed interest, and provoked a series of ecological (Van Doninck et al. 2002), molecular (Schön et al., 1998) and taxonomic studies. Several taxonomic papers have presented regional surveys of darwinulid faunas, e.g. Europe (Martens, Rossetti & Fuhrman, 1997), South Africa (Martens & Rossetti, 1997; Ros- setti & Martens, 1999), New Zealand and Australia (Rossetti, Eagar & Martens, 1998; Rossetti & Mar- tens, 1999; Martens & Rossetti, 2002). This culmi- nated in a world-wide revision of the group, which introduced three new genera, bringing the total num- ber to five extant genera (Rossetti & Martens, 1998). Most work on South American darwinulids dates from before 1970, with the exception of Rossetti, Mar- tens & Mourguiart (1996), and only the paper by Pinto & Kotzian (1961) deals with the detailed taxonomy of the Darwinulidae. Martens & Behen (1994) list the species of darwinulid ostracods at that stage reported from South America (see Martens, Würdig & Behen, 1998, for an account of Brazilian darwinulids). How- ever, several taxonomic alterations to this list were suggested by Rossetti & Martens (1998): all species except D. stevensoni were transferred to one of the three new genera; Penthesilenula brasiliensis is now considered a valid species, not a subspecies of P. afri- cana and Alicenula serricaudata espinosa was synon- ymized with the nominal subspecies. Taking into account these alterations, together with the two new Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/139/2/305/3816122 by guest on 09 June 2020