Recent marine Ostracoda from the Solomon Islands. Part 4: Cytheroidea; Hemicytheridae, Thaerocytheridae

Abstract

Abstract. Eleven species of family Hemicytheridae and seven of the family Thaerocytheridae are described. Together they comprise 14% of the total Recent ostracod fauna described from the Solomon Islands. In the main the hemicytherids are much more endemic than the thaerocytherids. Three new species have been recorded only from the Solomon Islands, and three species of Caudites, held in open nomenclature due to their rarity, are also probably endemic to the islands. Another three new species have been recorded only from Java and one species of Mimicocythere gen. et sp. nov. also occurs in Australia. The six new species described and illustrated are: Ambostracon (A.) micropapillatum, A. (A.) micromaculata, Caudites shortlandensis, ?C. atypicus, Mutilus dissimilis ssp. nov. and Mimicocythere pseudomelobesoides gen. et sp. nov. Only one of the hemicytherids, Caudites javana Kingma, occurs throughout the Indo-Pacific. It is the Thaerocytheridae, however, that are almost pandemic in tropical regions, with Tenedocythere deltoides and T. transoceanica being distributed particularly widely. A new species of the rare genus Neobuntonia, N. subalata sp. nov., only the second modern species to be described, is also illustrated.