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1. A new genus of soft coral (Octocorallia, Malacalcyonacea, Cladiellidae) and three new species from Indo-Pacific coral reefs

   https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1188.110617  

   McFadden, Catherine S; Benayahu, Yehuda; Samimi-Namin, Kaveh (January 2024, ZooKeys)

   Molecular systematic studies of the anthozoan class Octocorallia have revealed widespread incongruence between phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic classification at all levels of the Linnean hierarchy. Among the soft coral taxa in order Malacalcyonacea, the family Alcyoniidae and its type genusAlcyoniumhave both been recognised to be highly polyphyletic. A recent family-level revision of Octocorallia established a number of new families for genera formerly considered to belong to Alcyoniidae, but revision ofAlcyoniumis not yet complete. Previous molecular studies have supported the placement ofAlcyonium verseveldti(Benayahu, 1982) in family Cladiellidae rather than Alcyoniidae, phylogenetically distinct from the other three genera in that family. Here we describe a new genus,Ofwegenumgen. nov.to accommodateO. verseveldticomb. nov.and three new species of that genus,O. coronalucissp. nov.,O. kloogisp. nov., andO. collisp. nov., bringing the total number of species in this genus to four.Ofwegenumgen. nov.is a rarely encountered genus so far known from only a few locations spanning the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. We present the morphological characters of each species and use molecular data from both DNA barcoding and target-enrichment of conserved elements to explore species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships within the genus. 

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2. New genus and species of short-tailed whipscorpion (Schizomida: Hubbardiidae) from the Venezuelan Amazon

   https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5563.1.9  

   COLMENARES, PÍO A; MORENO-GONZÁLEZ, JAIRO A; VILLARREAL, OSVALDO; PRENDINI, LORENZO (January 2025, Zootaxa)

   A new genus and species of short-tailed whipscorpion (Schizomida: Hubbardiidae Cook, 1899) is described based on specimens collected in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. The new genus differs from other Neotropical genera in the presence of six setae on opisthosomal tergite II, the absence of seta Dm4 on the flagellum in both sexes, the female flagellum comprising four segments, and the median lobes of the spermatheca being four times longer than the lateral lobes. Jipai longevus gen. et sp. nov. increases the count of South American schizomid genera to fourteen and the count of species to 57. The type locality of the new taxon is situated in the Guiana region of Amazonia s. l., where three other hubbardiid genera have also been recorded. This discovery contributes to the understanding of Amazonian schizomid diversity and highlights the need for further sampling in this diverse, vulnerable and poorly explored area. 

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3. The Cephalozygoptera, a new, extinct suborder of Odonata with new taxa from the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands, western North America

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4934.1.1  

   Archibald, S. B. (February 2021, Zootaxa)

   Marinov, Milen (Ed.)

   We describe the Cephalozygoptera, a new, extinct suborder of Odonata, composed of the families Dysagrionidae and Sieblosiidae, previously assigned to the Zygoptera, and possibly the Whetwhetaksidae n. fam. The Cephalozygoptera is close to the Zygoptera, but differs most notably by distinctive head morphology. It includes 59 to 64 species in at least 19 genera and one genus-level parataxon. One species is known from the Early Cretaceous (Congqingia rhora Zhang), possibly three from the Paleocene, and the rest from the early Eocene through late Miocene. We describe new taxa from the Ypresian Okanagan Highlands of British Columbia, Canada and Washington, United States of America: 16 new species of Dysagrionidae of the existing genus Dysagrion (D. pruettae); the new genera Okanagrion (O. threadgillae, O. hobani, O. beardi, O. lochmum, O. angustum, O. dorrellae, O. liquetoalatum, O. worleyae, all new species); Okanopteryx (O. jeppesenorum, O. fraseri, O. macabeensis, all new species); Stenodiafanus (S. westersidei, new species); the new genus-level parataxon Dysagrionites (D. delinei new species, D. sp. A, D. sp. B, both new); and one new genus and species of the new family Whetwhetaksidae (Whetwhetaksa millerae). 

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4. A new lineage of deep-reef gobies from the Caribbean, including two new species and one new genus (Teleostei: Gobiidae: Gobiosomatini)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlac013  

   Tornabene, Luke; Manning, Rachel; Robertson, D Ross; Van Tassell, James L; Baldwin, Carole C (April 2022, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society)

   Fish communities on tropical deep reefs are dominated by species that belong to families primarily composed of shallow-water species. Collections of deep-reef fishes via submersibles have allowed us to include these deep-reef species in molecular phylogenies, providing insights into the timing and frequency of invasions from shallow to deep reefs. Here we provide evidence of a new deep-reef invasion in the tribe Gobiosomatini in the family Gobiidae (gobies). We describe two new species, one of which belongs to a new genus, and incorporate these taxa into a time-calibrated molecular phylogeny of Gobiosomatini to show that, collectively, these two genera represent a previously unreported independent invasion on to deep reefs that occurred approximately 20–30 million years ago. These new taxa are readily distinguished from related genera and species by a combination of live coloration, pelvic-fin morphology, meristic characters, head-pore patterns and other osteological characters. We discuss the relevance of these two new species to the systematics of the tribe Gobiosomatini and include a comparison to all known genera in the tribe. 

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5. Enigmas no longer: using ultraconserved elements to place several unusual hawk taxa and address the non-monophyly of the genus Accipiter (Accipitriformes: Accipitridae)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blae028  

   Catanach, Therese_A; Halley, Matthew_R; Pirro, Stacy (March 2024, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society)

   Abstract Hawks, eagles, and their relatives (Accipitriformes: Accipitridae) are a diverse and charismatic clade of modern birds, with many members that are instantly recognized by the general public. However, surprisingly little is known about the relationships among genera within Accipitridae, and several studies have suggested that some genera (in particular, the megadiverse genus Accipiter) are not monophyletic. Here, we combine a large new dataset obtained from ultraconserved elements, generated from whole genome sequencing of 134 species, with publicly available legacy markers (i.e. a suite of commonly sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear genes) to infer a well-supported, time-calibrated phylogeny of 237 extant or recently extinct species. Our densely sampled phylogeny, which includes 90% of recognized species, confirms the non-monophyly of Accipiter and provides a sufficient basis to revise the genus-level taxonomy, such that all genera in Accipitridae represent monophyletic groups. 

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