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Plakobranchus papua Meyers-Muñoz & van der Velde, sp. n. from West Papua (Papua Barat province, Indonesia), is described based on its external morphology, colour pattern, internal anatomy, radula and reproductive system. In a molecular phylogenetic study specimens of this new species were compared with those of ten candidate taxa under the name Plakobranchus ocellatus van Hasselt, 1824. DNA analyses of COI mtDNA showed a clear distinction between P. papua sp. n. and "P. ocellatus". Plakobranchus papua, sp. n. also differed from all taxa that have been synonymised with P. ocellatus. The genus is in dire need of taxonomic revision, preferably based on an integrative analysis involving morphology and DNA of all known Plakobranchus varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coral gall crabs form a commonly overlooked component of the associated fauna of shallow-water reef corals and therefore little is known about their ecology and biogeography. This study investigated the biogeography and phylogenetic position of the informal ‘Detocarcini’ species group within the Cryptochiridae. We used molecular data for two mitochondrial markers (COI and 16S) obtained from gall crabs covering (part of) a wide geographic range: the Red Sea, Malaysia, Indonesia and New Caledonia. Our phylogeny reconstructions portrayed the ‘Detocarcini’ as paraphyletic within the monophyletic Cryptochiridae. A phylogeographic clustering was noticed inNeotroglocarcinus dawydoffithat was absent in its sister species,N.hongkongensis, and the closely related speciesPseudocryptochirus viridis. A Neighbour Network was estimated for theN.dawydoffidataset to visualize the similarity between sequences from different biogeographic areas, resulting in three groupings: (1) New Caledonia with Lembeh/Ternate (eastern Indonesia), (2) Semporna/Kudat (eastern Malaysia), and (3) Red Sea (Saudi Arabia). Cryptic speciation rather than isolation is discussed and rejected as an alternative explanation for the observed biogeographic pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]