Revision of Ischnopelta Stål, 1868 with the description of twenty new species (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae: Discocephalinae)

Ischnopelta Stål, 1868 is a Discocephalini genus with three known species, I. scutellata (Signoret, 1851), I. oblonga (Fieber, 1851), and I. luteicornis (Walker, 1867), and distribution restricted to South America. The examination of 284 specimens from several localities in Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay, revealed the existence of new species. Measurements of 24 morphometric parameters were taken using stereomicroscope and tpsDig2 version 2.16 from images captured with an MShot MD50 camera coupled to a Techno RZ stereomicroscope and edited in MShot DIS version 1.1. The genitalia of both sexes was dissected upon specimen availability, digested in KOH 10%, dehydrated in ethanol 70%, stained in Congo red (when needed), and preserved in liquid glycerin. Photographs were made in a Nikon AZ100M stereomicroscope, and a focus stacking procedure was done with Nikon NIS-Elements Ar Microscope Imaging Software. Drawings were produced over the images with a vectorial image processor. In this work Ischnopelta is revised, I. scutellata and I. luteicornis are redescribed, and keys to males and females of the species are proposed. We describe 20 new species: I. alalonga sp. n., I. anangulata sp. n., I. bechyneorum sp. n., I. confusa sp. n., I. coralinae sp. n., I. cordiformis sp. n., I. crassula sp. n., I. cristulata sp. n., I. cylindrata sp. n., I. guarani sp. n., I. impunctata sp. n., I. magna sp. n., I. marginella sp. n., I. montana sp. n., I. paiagua sp. n., I. parvula sp. n., I. pellucidula sp. n., I. ruckesi sp. n., I. vellozia sp. n., and I. wigodzinskyi sp. n.. We were unable to locate the syntypes of I. oblonga (Fieber, 1851) and the species is treated here as incertae sedis.

Virtual Equivalents of Real Objects (VEROs): A type of non-fungible token (NFT) that can help fund the 3D digitization of natural history collections

Describing a substantial proportion of the world’s species could be made much easier by the 3D digitization of collections, which would facilitate the dissemination of taxonomic information locked up in natural history museums. Three-dimensional imaging captures many characters and allows a lot of versatility in the way that morphological data is displayed and used (Wheeler et al. 2012; Faulwetter et al. 2013). Moreover, the loss and damage of valuable specimens, many of which are very fragile, can be reduced as a result of the use and sharing of 3D model substitutes among researchers. This can also lead to a reduction in the handling and transportation expenses of many specimens.

iTaxoTools 0.1: Kickstarting a specimen-based software toolkit for taxonomists

While powerful and user-friendly software suites exist for phylogenetics, and an impressive cybertaxomic infrastructure of online species databases has been set up in the past two decades, software targeted explicitly at facilitating alpha-taxonomic work, i.e., delimiting and diagnosing species, is still in its infancy. Here we present a project to develop a bioinformatic toolkit for taxonomy, based on open-source Python code, including tools focusing on species delimitation and diagnosis and centered around specimen identifiers. At the core of iTaxoTools is user-friendliness, with numerous autocorrect options for data files and with intuitive graphical user interfaces. Assembled standalone executables for all tools or a suite of tools with a launcher window will be distributed for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS systems, and in the future also implemented on a web server. The initial version (iTaxoTools 0.1) distributed with this paper (https://github.com/iTaxoTools/iTaxoTools-Executables) contains graphical user interface (GUI) versions of six species delimitation programs (ABGD, ASAP, DELINEATE, GMYC, PTP, tr2) and a simple threshold-clustering delimitation tool. There are also new Python implementations of existing algorithms, including tools to compute pairwise DNA distances, ultrametric time trees based on non-parametric rate smoothing, species-diagnostic nucleotide positions, and standard morphometric analyses. Other utilities convert among different formats of molecular sequences, geographical coordinates, and units; merge, split and prune sequence files, tables and species partition files; and perform simple statistical tests. As a future perspective, we envisage iTaxoTools to become part of a bioinformatic pipeline for next-generation taxonomy that accelerates the inventory of life while maintaining high-quality species hypotheses. The open source code and binaries of all tools are available from Github (https://github.com/iTaxoTools) and further information from the website (http://itaxotools.org)

New concepts and methods for phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology, exemplified by a new ranked cladonomy of recent amphibians (Lissamphibia): corrigenda and addenda

Just after the publication of our paper (Dubois et al. 2021), we discovered that, in Table 1, pages 443 and 444 are identical, and the actual page 443 is missing. We here provide this page, and we took this opportunity to correct a few other errors in this paper. We provide below corrections only in the case of misspellings or other errors that may induce misunderstandings of our text, not for pure format problems (concerning punctuation, parentheses, italics, bold and capital letters), which do not impede understanding of our text.

All genera of the world: Order Thysanoptera (Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta)

There are 1270 genus-group names available in the Insect Order Thysanoptera by the end of 2020. Of these, 850 refer to currently accepted genera, including 65 genera of fossils. A further 420 genus-group names are placed in synonymy. Of the currently accepted genera 474 have been described since 1950. Despite this descriptive activity, the supra-generic classification of Thysanoptera genera remains poorly structured with relationships largely obscure and 50% of the genera monobasic.

All genera of the world: Order †Lophioneurida—fossil out-groups of Thripida (Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta)

The present paper presents a compilation of the generic names available in the fossil insect order Lophioneurida (Insecta: Thripida). It comprises 18 accepted genera, 4 synonyms and one invalid homonym.

All genera of the world: an introduction to the inventory

The ’All genera of the world’ series was announced by Zhang (2020) when Megataxa was launched. It aims to publish a full list of all genera (living and fossil) in a current consensus classification, including species richness, type species, and synonyms/homonyms (if any) for each genus. Original references for the generic names, type species, and nomenclatural changes should be checked and listed. This series, when completed, will provide a basis for a full inventory of life on Earth. It is an extension of a previous series of papers to the family level for animal diversity (Zhang 2011, 2013). The series invites individual taxonomists or a large team to submit small articles or large monographs for their taxa.

New concepts and methods for phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology, exemplified by a new ranked cladonomy of recent amphibians (Lissamphibia)

Although currently most taxonomists claim to adhere to the concept of ‘phylogenetic taxonomy’, in fact most of the zoological classifications currently published are only in part ‘phylogenetic’ but include also phenetic or gradist approaches, in their arbitrary choices of the nodes formally recognised as taxa and in their attribution of ranks to these taxa. We here propose a new approach to ‘phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature’, exemplified by a phylogenetic classification or cladonomy of the extant amphibians (subclass Lissamphibia of the class Amphibia) derived from a supermatrix-based phylogenetic analysis using 4060 amphibian species, i.e. about half of the 8235 species recognised on 31 October 2020. These taxa were represented by a mean of 3029 bp (range: 197–13849 bp) of DNA sequence data from a mean of 4 genes (range: 1‒15). The cladistic tree thus generated was transferred into a classification according to a new taxonomic and nomenclatural methodology presented here, which allows a bijective or isomorphic relationship between the phylogenetic hypothesis and the classification through a rigorous use of suprageneric ranks, in which their hierarchy mirrors the structure of the tree. Our methodology differs from all previous ones in several particulars: [1] whereas the current International Code of Zoological Nomenclature uses only three ‘groups of names’ (species, genus and family), we recognise four nominal-series (species, genus, family and class); [2] we strictly follow the Code for the establishment of the valid nomen (scientific name) of taxa in the three lower nominal-series (however, in a few situations, we suggest improvements to the current Rules of the Code); [3] we provide precise and unambiguous Criteria for the assignment of suprageneric nomina to either the family- or the class-series, excluding nomina proposed expressly under unranked or pseudoranked nomenclatural systems; [4] in the class-series, for which the Code provides only incomplete Rules concerning availability, we provide precise, complete and unambiguous Criteria for the nomenclatural availability, taxonomic allocation and nomenclatural validity and correctness of nomina; [5] we stress the fact that nomenclatural ranks do not have biological definitions or meanings and that they should never be used in an ‘absolute’ way (e.g., to express degrees of genetic or phenetic divergence between taxa or hypothesised ages of cladogeneses) but in a ‘relative’ way: two taxa which are considered phylogenetically as sister-taxa should always be attributed to the same nomenclatural rank, but taxa bearing the same rank in different ‘clades’ are by no means ‘equivalent’, as the number of ranks depends largely on the number of terminal taxa (species) and on the degree of phylogenetic resolution of the tree; [6] because of this lack of ‘equivalence’, some arbitrary criteria are necessary to fix a starting point for assigning a given suprageneric rank to some taxa, from which the ranks of all other taxa will automatically derive through a simple implementation of the hierarchy of ranks: for this purpose we chose the rank family and we propose a ‘Ten Criteria Procedure’ allowing to fix the position of this rank in any zoological classification. As a result of the implementation of this set of Criteria, we obtained a new ranked classification of extant lissamphibians using 25 suprageneric ranks below the rank class (11 class-series and 14 family-series ranks), and including 34 class-series and 573 family-series taxa, and where the 575 genera we recognise are referred to 69 families and 87 subfamilies. We provide new nomina and diagnoses for 10 class-series taxa, 171 family-series taxa, 14 genus-series taxa and 1 species. As many new species of amphibians are permanently described, this classification and its nomenclature will certainly have to change many times in the future but, using the clear, explicit, complete, automatic and unambiguous methodology presented here, these changes will be easy to implement, and will not depend on subjective and arbitrary choices as it has too often been the case in the last decades. We suggest that applying this methodology in other zoological groups would improve considerably the homogeneity, clarity and usefulness of zoological taxonomy and nomenclature.

Untold diversity: the astonishing species richness of the Notodelphyidae (Copepoda: Cyclopoida), a family of symbiotic copepods associated with ascidians (Tunicata)

Detailed study of the Monniot collection of copepods belonging to the family Notodelphyidae has revealed an extraordinary diversity of novel taxa. With rare exceptions notodelphyids live in association with ascidians and the Monniot collection was built up over several decades of field collecting and taxonomic research on the ascidian hosts by Drs Claude & Françoise Monniot (MNHN, Paris). This paper describes a total of 178 new species of notodelphyids from ascidian hosts and 37 new genera are established: Bathynotodelphys gen.nov., Pronotodelphys gen. nov., Ooishillgia gen. nov., Nobinerilla gen. nov., Notopygus gen. nov., Chelipygus gen. nov., Sympygus gen. nov., Vaoda gen. nov., Gosbia gen. nov., Pentachaetus gen. nov., Diceratus gen. nov., Prodoroixys gen. nov., Notoixys gen. nov., Borixys gen. nov., Cystixys gen. nov., Ammonixys gen. nov., Ctenixys gen. nov., Ademoixys gen. nov., Gallincola gen. nov., Scoliosoma gen. nov., Contoura gen. nov., Unimeria gen. nov., Mecodelphys gen. nov., Tubipedia gen. nov., Procampodelphys gen. nov., Janius gen. nov., Campodelphys gen. nov., Hamaticoxa gen. nov., Adrodelphys gen. nov., Phyllodelphys gen. nov., Lissodelphys gen. nov., Nodoscarus gen. nov., Diblastus gen. nov., Chilodelphys gen. nov., Scaridelphys gen. nov., Socotradelphys gen. nov., and Aplodelphys gen. nov. Prior to this study the Notodelphyidae comprised exactly 200 valid species classified in 46 genera, a mean species richness of 4.3 species per genus. After the addition of the new taxa described here, the family now comprises 378 species in 83 genera, a mean species richness of 4.6 species per genus. Generic diagnoses are provided for all genera represented in the collection and the availability of a wider range of taxa has allowed certain generic boundaries to be better defined, resulting in transfers of species between genera and the recognition of 16 new combinations. A further 51 existing species are also reported, and brief supplementary notes or full redescriptions are provided as appropriate.

Grenadiers (Teleostei: Gadiformes: Macrouridae) of Japan and adjacent waters, a taxonomic monograph

The taxonomy of the gadiform fish family Macrouridae (sensu stricto) in the northwestern Pacific off Japan and adjacent waters is critically reviewed on the basis of 7846 specimens. A total of 76 species belonging to 18 genera is recognized, including four new species of the genera Coelorinchus (2 species), Kuronezumia (1), and Nezumia (1). Coelorinchus lanceolatus sp. nov. superficially resembles Coe. anatirostris Jordan & Gilbert in Jordan & Starks, 1904, but differs most notably from that species in having a distinctly longer snout (107% of the postrostral length vs. 60–88%). Coelorinchus nox sp. nov. is closely similar to Coe. smithi Gilbert & Hubbs, 1920, but readily differs from the latter in that the occipital scales are covered with short, erect, needle-like spinules in widely divergent, comb-like rows (vs. moderately reclined, keel-like to knife-like spinules in saw-toothed rows). Kuronezumia endoi sp. nov. is a distinctive species among the genus, and is clearly diagnosed from other congeners in having the highest number of pelvic-fin rays (15 vs. ≤14). Nezumia rara sp. nov. closely resembles N. tomiyamai (Okamura, 1963), but they can be distinguished from each other by the combination of a number of morphometric characters, including the orbit-preopercle distance, interorbital width, pelvic-fin length, and length of gill slit. New and reconfirmed synonymies include: Coe. abbreviatus Chu & Lo in Chu, Chan & Chen, 1963 and Coe. intermedius Chu & Lo in Chu, Chan & Chen, 1963 with Coe. multispinulosus Katayama, 1942; Coe. productus Gilbert & Hubbs, 1916 with Coe. anatirostris; Coe. asteroides Okamura, 1963 with Coe. hige Matsubara, 1943; Coe. sparsilepis Okamura & Yatou, 1984 with Coe. parallelus (Günther, 1877); Coryphaenoides filamentosus Okamura, 1970 with Cor. cinereus (Gilbert, 1896); Cor. liocephalus (Günther, 1887) with Cor. leptolepis Günther, 1877; Cor. spinulosus (Gilbert & Burke, 1912) with Cor. acrolepis (Bean, 1884); and Ventrifossa fusca Okamura, 1982 with V. misakia (Jordan & Gilbert in Jordan & Starks, 1904). Lectotypes are designated for Coe. parallelus, Cor. asper Günther, 1877, Cor. liocephalus, and Cor. nasutus Günther, 1877. Previous records of N. burragei (Gilbert, 1905) and N. propinqua (Gilbert & Cramer, 1897) from Japan represent misidentifications, and these species are eliminated from the list of Japanese grenadiers. Coryphaenoides armatus (Hector, 1875) and Cor. leptolepis are recorded for the first time from the hadal zone. All species are illustrated, with full descriptions for 14 species. Dichotomous keys to genera and species are also provided. The distribution of each species in the study area is revised based on the specimens examined here, with re-identification of voucher specimens of most previous geographical records.