A New Species of Branchinella (Crustacea: Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae) from Alice Springs, Australia.

A new fairy shrimp, Branchinella rosalieae n.sp., is described from a claypan within Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Its frontal appendage is like other members of the B. affinis group, consisting of a central trunk divided terminally into two substantial branches but distinctively with sensory papillae only along its medial margin. Other male characteristics are unremarkable and the female is like many others in Branchinella. The egg is spherical with close set polygons, like that in many species of Branchinella

A New Species of Clam Shrimp Eulimnadia (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Spinicaudata: Limnadiidae) from Northern Inland New South Wales

A new species of Eulimnadia is described from roadside table drains 51 km NNW of Moree, northwestern NSW. It is an androdioecious species with the characteristic spiniform projection at the ventroposterior angle of the telson, the cercopod divided into two unequal sections by a spine and only eight antennomeres in each flagellum of the second antenna. The egg, its most characteristic feature, is cylindrical and somewhat distorted by an incomplete second band of ridges and grooves, making it the second Australian species with a cylindrical egg

Study of the saline lakes of the Esperance Hinterland, Western Australia, with special reference to the roles of acidity and episodicity

Most saline lakes are alkaline, but acid ground waters in some southern areas in Western Australia cause some to have pHs as low as 3. Their fauna is severely restricted to an endemic brine shrimp (Paratemia sp.), a copepod Calamoecia trilobata, and two species of ostracods, including Australocypris bennetti. Nearby alkaline salt lakes show an attenuating fauna with increasing salinity with dominance by various crustaceans particularly Paratemia spp., various ostracods, copepods, Daphnia (Daphniopsis) truncata, Haloniscus searlei and snails including Coxiella glauerti, as is typical in salinas in southern Australia. When both types of lakes fill with episodic rain, their salinity is vastly reduced and pH approaches neutrality. Such lakes are colonized by insects and by large branchiopods. Many of the latter are new to science and occur only in these brief hyposaline stages. Such a unique assemblage is in danger of extinction due to hypersaline mining waste waters being dumped in saline lakes and to secondary salinization

Waterbirds of the Saline Lakes of the Paroo, arid-zone Australia: A review with special reference to diversity and conservation

About sixty species of waterbird live in the Paroo area of Australia and most of these have been recorded on its 150+ saline lakes of various salinities and sizes. Unlike water plants, invertebrates and fish, avian species richness is hardly influenced by salinity in the Paroo, although the data suggest that richness might be lower in hypersaline lakes. Common species at salinities , 30 g/l include Eurasian coot, Black swan, Pink-eared duck, Grey teal, and Australian pelican while at salinities \u3e 100 g/l Red-necked avocets and stilts are common. Because saline lakes generally have more abundant food than freshwater lakes, waterbirds tend to be more abundant on them. However, most species do not utilize them for breeding, unless islands are present as in Lake Wyara. Bird numbers fluctuate widely in response to many factors, including food availability and state of wetlands elsewhere in the inland. Birds move freely between fresh and saline waters and are nomadic between wetlands across the vast Australian inland. Some Paroo salinas and their birds are threatened by localized siltation and local freshwater lakes could be destroyed by water harvesting for desert irrigation. The effect of water harvesting on other inland wetlands could also affect the Paroo and its salinas

A redescription of Paralimnadia urukhai Webb and Bell 1979 with the description of a new species P. minyspinosa (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Limnadiidae).

Clam shrimps of the genus Paralimnadia living in small pools of the eastern highlands are particularly variable between populations. A detailed study of many populations of P. urukhai in the northern New England Tablelands revealed almost random variation in normally conservative characters such as egg morphology and cercopod setae as well as wide variation in other less defining characters. This necessitates a revised description of this species. This redescription focuses only on the Stanthorpe group of populations as previous genetic analysis suggests the Bald Rock populations could represent a separate species, but the two cannot be separated presently based on morphological features. However, two populations 100 km to the south are morphologically and genetically distinct enough to constitute a new species which we describe herein. All these populations live in isolated rock pools within forests where dispersal is difficult, so that retained founder effects and local adaptation are probably directing interpopulation variability

A Study on the Pools of a Granitic Mountain Top at Moonbi, New South Wales

Flynns Rock in the Moonbi Ranges has many gnammas (rock pools) that have formed by rock solution and which fill in heavy summer rains and remain inundated for much of the year. The two largest pools support 41 taxa of invertebrates, with the smaller pools less speciose. A rehabilitated gnamma was colonized rapidly by local species. The flora and fauna are comprised almost entirely of widespread eurytopic species dominated by insects, with most typical gnamma genera absent, though Isoetes, Glossostigma, Eulimnadia and Bennelongia are represented. Diversity is much influenced by habitat size and to a far lesser extent by isolation

A New Species of the Fairy Shrimp Branchinella (Crustacea: Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae) from Western New South Wales, Australia.

Branchinella angelica n.sp. is described from the Wilcannia area in western New South Wales. Its frontal appendage is distinctive and consist of a two branches, each with a central subbranch of a pad on a short peduncle and a large main branch with many lateral and medial digitiform processes of varying complexity. Other male characteristics are unremarkable and the female is like many others in Branchinella. So far it has been found only in artificial sites, so that its natural habitat is unknown

Morphometrics of the resting eggs of the fairy shrimp Branchinella in Australia (Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae)

Branchinella resting eggs are characterised by having surface ridges arranged more or less in polygons and by almost all species having few, if any, spines. The eggs of 33 out of a known possible 40 species (including 4 out of 6 undescribed species) were studied by SEM. A few species are distinctive by being adorned with lighter coloured surface membranes often strengthened by ribs or sparse spines and one (B.longirostris) is regularly spinose. Those species known to be morphological variable also have variable egg morphologies. This makes it difficult to characterise specific egg morphology, but even so in some species eggs are distinct : B. arborea, B. australiensis, B. budjiti, B. compacta, B. complexidigitata, B. hattahensis, B. kadjikadji, B. longirostris, B. lyrifera, B. occidentalis, B. pinderi and B. vosperi. Most of the remainder are easily confused with at least one or more species. Branchinella egg morphology seems of little value in taxonomical studies and of restricted use in distinguishing eggs in dried sediments

Predatory Morphology and Behaviour in Branchinella occidentalis (Dakin, 1914) (Branchiopoda: Anostraca: Thamnocephalidae)

Branchinella occidentalis (Dakin 1914) is redescribed from material collected across the species natural distribution, with special attention to its functional morphology in relation to predatory feeding behaviour observed in the wild and in culture. We present B. occidentalis as a predatory anostracan with physical adaptations convergent with other large predatory anostracan taxa. Comparisons with its closest sister taxon, B. australiensis (Richters 1876), and with other predatory species are made and discussed. Revised and updated defi nitions and diagnoses for the Thamnocephalidae, Branchinella, and Branchinella sensu stricto are provided