Cribrilinidae (Bryozoa: Cheilostomatida) from the Ría de Ferrol (NW Spain)

Eleven species of cribrimorph Bryozoa are recorded from the Ria de Ferrol (NW Spain). One of these species is new to science (Puellina parva sp.nov.). Distansescharella seguenzai is reported for the first time outside the Mediterranean, and three species (Puellina modica, Puellina directa and Puellina bifida) are new to the Iberian coast. Study of museum specimens confirms the presence of Puellina radiata in the Atlantic Ocean.     

News from a small island – first record of a freshwater shrimp (Decapoda,Atyidae, Caridina) from Peleng,Banggai Islands,Indonesia

The Indonesian island Sulawesi is well known for its fascinating fauna. Among the atyid and palaemonid freshwater shrimps described from Sulawesi are also a number of endemic species. In contrast, freshwater shrimps have never been reported from the nearby and smaller Peleng Island. Here we describe Caridina thomasi sp. nov. as a first record of an atyid freshwater shrimp from Peleng and compare it with atyids from Sulawesi and other localities. The new species is probably endemic to the island and shows some characters never described in the genus Caridina before. However, a molecular phylogeny of atyid shrimps from the Indo‐West Pacific based on mitochondrial DNA (16S) places C. thomasi within a clade of typical species of Caridina. We tentatively assign the new species to the genus Caridina and discuss the possibility of future changes in the classification of species in this genus.     

Subspeciation or none? The hardun in the Aegean (Reptilia: Sauria: Agamidae: Laudakia stellio)

A study aimed at testing the contested validity of the subspecies Laudakia stellio daani yielded novel insights into the essence of subspecies. We examined morphologically museum specimens from Greece, Aegean islands, and Anatolia (n?=?118; not all could be used in all analyses). Beyond the conventional mensural, meristic and qualitative characters we quantified 14 coloration characters, thus totalling 34 characters (including sex). Biometry was statistically analysed within and between the two geographically defined presumed subspecies, L. s. daani and L. s. stellio. Excluding or including broken‐tailed specimens changed the outcome of tests. Significant minor directional asymmetry occurred in one of four character‐taxon combinations. Phenetic cluster analysis poorly separated the two presumed subspecies when all characters, including those with discordant variation, were included; after selection of characters, the separation improved. Some biometric characters distinguish the two presumed subspecies, confirming their validity. The associations of significant inter‐character correlations differed between the two subspecies. Additionally, the two differed in parameters reflecting selection pressures and social structure: L. s. stellio is more colourful than L. s. daani; its sexual dimorphism is mainly chromatic, versus mensural in L. s. daani; and its population seems to include many males with underdeveloped callous scales, presumably socially subordinate, versus very few in L. s. daani.     

A specimen of Tirumala hamata hamata (Macleay, 1826) (Lepidoptera: Danainae) from Captain Cook’s first voyage

On 29 May 1770 Joseph Banks described a spectacular swarming of ‘milions’ [sic] ‘of one sort’ of butterfly at Thirsty Sound, near what is now Rockhampton, Queensland, comparing it to a species from China that had been named by Linnaeus. Discovery of what appears to be an Endeavour voyage specimen of this Australian butterfly in the Hunterian Zoology Museum, Glasgow, allows us to confirm its long-suspected identity as Tirumala hamata hamata (Macleay) – a species unnamed and unknown at the time of Cook’s first voyage. Investigations into several collections that include eighteenth-century Australian Lepidoptera and associated literature have not positively identified any further specimens taken from the swarm, although a pair in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History could be from the same source. Taxonomic confusion due to mimicry, convergence and/or non-divergence affecting blue tiger patterned butterflies is most likely the principal reason such a specimen has previously gone undetected.