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1. New species of snakes of the genus Dendrelaphis (Squamata: Colubridae) from the Milne Bay Islands, Papua New Guinea

   https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5618.4.1  

   KRAUS, FRED (April 2025, Zootaxa)

   Australo-Papuan snakes of the genus Dendrelaphis have historically been a taxonomically confusing group, with 28 nomina applied to snakes in this region. Recent taxonomic revision has established the presence of nine valid species in this area, though few specimens were examined from across most of the large island of New Guinea. This lacuna, along with unreliable application of names to Melanesian Dendrelaphis in museum collections, means that the ranges of each species remain to be properly resolved on New Guinea and islands immediately to the east. Herein I examine the taxonomic status of Dendrelaphis specimens from outlying large islands in Milne Bay Province, off the southeastern tip of New Guinea, and I find that each of the three large islands of the Louisiade Archipelago, as well as Woodlark Island, contain their own endemic species. Based on hemipenial morphology, three of these species (D. anthracina sp. nov., D. melanarkys sp. nov., D. roseni sp. nov.) belong to the D. papuensis group and the last (D. atra sp. nov.) to the D. punctulatus group. Identification of the first three species requires reassessment and rediagnosis of D. papuensis. Two of the new species are characterized by ontogenetic melanization of animals, and a third is also uniformly black with a white chin when adult, though juveniles are unavailable to determine whether melanization also occurs ontogenetically in that species. Melanesian species of Dendrelaphis are largely diagnosed by unique color-pattern features, and this work identifies additional diagnostic features of color pattern for these species and confirms the critical importance of hemipenial differences in distinguishing among similar-appearing species in this region.  

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2. A new species of Aspidomorphus (Serpentes: Elapidae) from Papua New Guinea

   https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5631.1.7  

   KRAUS, FRED (May 2025, Zootaxa)

   Papuan snakes of the genus Aspidomorphus have long been taxonomically problematic, but nomenclature within this group has been stable at three recognized species since 1967. Previous genetic work suggested the presence of a number of cryptic but currently unrecognized candidate species in the genus. In 2004, I obtained a series of Aspidomorphus from Sudest Island, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea that were clearly different from currently recognized species, and I describe that species here as A. dimorphus sp. nov. This species exhibits a striking bimodality in color pattern in adults, here termed the “orange morph” and “dark morph”. This dimorphism is not related to sex, and both forms have earlier been shown to be genetically identical. Description of A. dimorphus sp. nov. begins the process of bringing taxonomic clarity to a genus long held in the grip of nomenclatural stasis. It furthermore highlights again the importance of Sudest Island for biodiversity endemism.  

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3. Diversity of Kallymeniaceae (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) associated with Hawaiian mesophotic reefs

   https://doi.org/10.1080/09670262.2021.1891462  

   Cabrera, Feresa P.; Huisman, John M.; Spalding, Heather L.; Kosaki, Randall K.; Sherwood, Alison R. (April 2021, European Journal of Phycology)

   null (Ed.)

   Small red algal morphologically variable blades have been extensively collected from Hawaiian reefs, but for many specimens their taxonomy remains poorly understood. In surveys of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) and Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI), we discovered two taxa of undescribed small (< 5 cm) red blades that matched the genera Psaromenia and Meredithia, based on morphology and molecular analyses. Neither genus has been previously recorded in the Hawaiian Islands, and neither group of specimens matched currently described species in these two genera. Accordingly, these specimens are described here as new species within the family Kallymeniaceae. Psaromenia laulamaula sp. nov., exclusively found at mesophotic depths (83–94 m) in PMNM, is easily distinguished from other members of the genus by its comparatively large, procarpic carpogonial branch system and solitary obovate pink-tomagenta blades. Conversely, Meredithia hawaiiensis sp. nov., occurring in both shallow (0–17 m) and mesophotic depths (55 m), has high morphological plasticity, with characters that overlap with other Meredithia species, and can only be distinguished based on DNA sequences. This study provides additional evidence of the extent of diversity in the Kallymeniaceae that is poorly characterized from mesophotic depths and provides further evidence that members of the macroalgal flora contain overlooked biodiversity. 

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4. A review of Appalachian Dasycerus Brongniart and the recognition of cryptic diversity within Dasycerus carolinensis (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Dasycerinae)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixae009  

   Caterino, Michael_S; Harden, Curt_W; Marvaldi, ed., Adriana (April 2024, Insect Systematics and Diversity)

   Abstract Previous analyses have revealed deep divergences among populations of the relictual and enigmatic rove beetle, Dasycerus carolinensis Horn. New data from additional populations, molecular markers, and morphology unambiguously reveal this “species” to represent a complex of closely related species, distinguishable by characters of the male genitalia and corresponding closely to geographically coherent clades discovered by molecular analyses. Calibrated dating analyses show Appalachian Dasycerus to have been diverging in the region for more than 10 million years, yet largely respecting important biogeographic barriers in the region, such as the French Broad and Little Tennessee River drainages. In addition to discussing finer scale biogeographic patterns in the group, we formally recognize 9 new species from within what was formerly known as Dasycerus carolinensis: Dasycerus virginiensis sp. nov., Dasycerus tuckasegee sp. nov., Dasycerus pacolet sp. nov., Dasycerus chattooga sp. nov., Dasycerus itseyi sp. nov., Dasycerus unicoi sp. nov., Dasycerus nikwasi sp. nov., Dasycerus egwanulti sp. nov., and Dasycerus gadalutsi sp. nov. It was not, however, possible to assign all samples to one of these species, and specimens from some sparsely sampled outlying areas, northern Alabama and central Tennessee in particular, may represent additional species. 

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5. A new genus and species of feather duster worm (Annelida, Sabellidae) from shallow hydrocarbon seeps in the Gulf of Mexico

   https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e139552  

   Rice, Lauren; Tovar-Hernández, María Ana; Ellison, Christina; Young, Craig (March 2025, Biodiversity Data Journal)

   Sabellid species are known to have a broad depth distribution and have been reported from various deep-sea habitats, including chemosynthetic systems. Despite this presence, only two species have been identified from deep water chemosynthetic habitats and only one has been identified to species. When examining hydrocarbon seep systems along the Upper Louisiana Slope in the Gulf of Mexico, we observed an abundant sabellid species new to science. The characters for the collected specimens did not match any existing genus. The description for the new sabellid genus and species are presented, supported by external morphology and DNA sequence data (cytochrome c oxidase I).Seepicola viridiplumigen. nov., sp. nov. are gregarious, facultative hyper-epibionts within the examined methane seep communities and, seemingly, have a blend of morphological features of the generaPerkinsianaandPseudopotamilla. Specimens also have several distinctive characters including the presence of a pair of peristomial chambers between the ventral lappets and parallel lamellae and the short, button-like shape of the radiolar tips. Abundance estimates forS. viridiplumigen. nov., sp. nov. within the seep habitats are also presented. 

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