The Diplommatinidae of Timor-Leste, with description of five new species (Gastropoda, Architaeniglossa, Cyclophoroidea)

ABSTRACT

This is the first systematic treatment of the Diplommatinidae of Timor-Leste, the country that encompasses the eastern part of the island of Timor. Three diplommatinid species in two genera were recorded from the western part of the island in previous systematic literature. Based on 28 samples collected between 2010 and 2012 throughout Timor-Leste, we describe five additional species (Diplommatina atauroensis n. sp., Palaina ainaro n. sp., Palaina orelimo n. sp., Palaina tuba n. sp., and Palaina brandontrani n. sp.), raising the number of diplommatinid species on the island to eight. Two species previously described from West Timor (Diplommatina fluminis B. Rensch, 1931 and Palaina mutis Greke, 2017) were also recorded in Timor-Leste; both appear to be more widespread, the former also occurring on the neighbouring island of Sumba and possibly also on Flores, Bali and Java. However, all newly described species are known only from their type localities, all of which are on exposed limestone. They are deemed to be narrow range endemics that probably do not occur outside Timor-Leste.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:03796E39-003B-4CF1-87A0-DCB23D6AA396

Acknowledgements

Producing this work would not have been possible without the support of many people. Foremost, the authors thank Manuel Mendes, Head of Protected Areas and National Parks, National Directorate of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, for permitting field work to collect samples in Timor-Leste and for supporting our surveys over many years. Thanks are also due to Zito Afranio Soares, Dili, for his indispensable help in field work and logistics. Material used here was partly collected during the Australian Museum Expedition to Timor-Leste in 2012, which was generously funded by an anonymous donation to the Australian Museum Foundation. We owe a debt of gratitude to Eunice Wong (Australian Museum) for specimen photography, including cleaning and measuring shells, and Sue Lindsay (Macquarie University, Sydney) for SEM work. The authors would like to thank two reviewers, Robert Cowie and an anonymous reviewer, for providing critical comments and corrections, which helped to improve the clarity of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.