A new genus and two new species of land planarians (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida: Geoplanidae) from Southern Chile

ABSTRACT

The paper describes the new land planarian genus Mapuplana gen. nov. from Chile, on the basis of the two new species Mapuplana guttulata sp. nov. and M. fjordica sp. nov. The genus Mapuplana is mainly characterised by two putative apomorphies: a subneural parenchymal musculature consisting of diagonal decussate muscle fibres; and a blind duct opening sideways into the female atrium. The new species are very similar to each other in their general anatomy and differ only in details in the pattern of dorsal colouration, the relative distance between mouth and gonopore, the relative thickness of the ventral cutaneous musculature, the orientation of the gonoduct, and the shape of the female atrium.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:120AC180-D4AC-433F-B3A0-BB96C6962DB4

KEYWORDS:

• Chile
• land flatworm
• new genus
• new species
• Mapuplana

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Corporación Nacional Forestal (Chile) for licensing field work in Chile (#27/2010). Fernando Portella de Luna Marques (USP) and Francisco Cádiz are thanked for assistance in the field, and Geison Castro da Silveira, Lucas Beltrami, and Marcos Santos Silva are thanked for their help with histological processing. Marcos Ryotaro Hara (USP) is thanked for help with the English grammar of an earlier version of the text. Birger Neuhaus kindly facilitated access to the histological laboratory of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Leigh Winsor and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed, in part, by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 (Proc. 88882.378126/2019-01). FC has financial support from São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP (Proc. 2019/12357-7).