The carabid beetle tribe Moriomorphini attains a disjunct austral geographical distribution, with member taxa occupying Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Sundas, southern South America and Polynesia. The group arose in Australia, the area exhibiting the greatest generic diversity for the tribe. In this contribution, two new genera are added to the Australian fauna. Pharetis thayerae, gen. nov., sp. nov., is described from Grenvillia, New South Wales, and Spherita newtoni, gen. nov., sp. nov., is described from Avon Valley National Park, Western Australia. Their phylogenetic placement within the tribe is accomplished by parsimony analysis based on 208 morphological characters across 124 taxa, 114 in-group species and 10 outgroup taxa representing Trechini, Psydrini and Patrobini. Nearly all polytypic moriomorphine genera are represented in the analysis by at least two exemplars, allowing initial tests of generic monophyly. A revised classification is proposed for Moriomorphini, with subtribal clades related as (Amblytelina + (Moriomorphina + Tropopterina)). The Western Australian genus Spherita is placed as adelphotaxon to Sitaphe Moore, a genus restricted to tropical montane Queensland. From the phylogenetic analysis, other non-contemporaneous east–west Australian disjunctions can be inferred, as well as multiple trans-Tasman area relationships between eastern Australia and New Zealand, all proposed to be of Miocene age. Pharetis exhibits a disjunct, trans-Antarctic relationship with Tropopterus Solier, its sister-group, distributed in southern South America. Alternative vicariance-based and dispersal-based hypotheses are discussed for the origin of Tropopterus. A review of the taxonomic development of the tribe illustrates the signal importance of monotypic genera in elucidating biological diversity.

The pseudoscorpions of the genus Garypus L. Koch are restricted to seashore habitats where they occupy supralittoral and littoral zones primarily in tropical and subtropical areas. Few species have been recorded from the Indo-West Pacific region, and this project was devised to produce a review of the species found in museum collections and to test the relationships of the various garypid genera using a molecular analysis and an assessment of their morphology. A new subfamily classification is proposed with the subfamilies Garypinae, including Garypus and the new genus Anchigarypus Harvey (type species Garypus californicus Banks), and the Synsphyroninae for the other genera (Ammogarypus Beier, Anagarypus Chamberlin, Elattogarypus Beier, Eremogarypus Beier, Meiogarypus Beier, Neogarypus Vachon, Paragarypus Vachon, Neogarypus Vachon, Synsphyronus Chamberlin, and Thaumastogarypus Beier). The species-level revision of Garypus provides evidence for at least 14 species, most of which are known from only single localities. The following species are redescribed: G. insularis Tullgren from the Seychelles, G. krusadiensis Murthy & Ananthakrishnan from India and Sri Lanka, G. longidigitus Hoff from Queensland, Australia, G. maldivensis Pocock from the Maldives, G. nicobarensis Beier from the Nicobar Islands and G. ornatus Beier from the Marshall Islands. The holotype of G. insularis is a tritonymph, and not therefore readily identifiable. Nine new species are described: G. latens Harvey, sp. nov., G. malgaryungu Harvey, sp. nov., G. necopinus Harvey, sp. nov., G. postlei Harvey, sp. nov., G. ranalliorum Harvey, sp. nov. and G. weipa Harvey, sp. nov. from northern Australia, G. dissitus Harvey, sp. nov. from Cocos-Keeling Island, G. reong Harvey, sp. nov. and G. yeni Harvey, sp. nov. from Indonesia. A further possible new species from Queensland is described but not named, as it is represented by a single tritonymph. The subspecies of the Caribbean species G. bonairensis Beier are elevated to full species status: G. bonairensis, G. realini Hummelinck and G. withi Hoff. We supplement the descriptions with sequence data from five specimens from four species of Garypus and two species of Anchigarypus, and find COI divergence levels of 7–19% between Garypus species.

The majority of Australian Spinicaudata Linder, 1945 inhabit the (semi)arid deserts of Australia’s lowlands. However, several closely related species of Paralimnadia Sars, 1896 inhabit small temporary habitats throughout the Great Dividing Range in eastern Australia. By combining analyses of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) with double-digest restriction-site associated DNA (ddRAD) data, we studied the species diversity and genetic diversity of this group of mountain-dwelling branchiopods. Levels of genetic differentiation in COI are relatively low between putative species (mostly between 1.5 and 6.7%), complicating COI-based species delimitation. Depending on the applied threshold, three to six species are inferred in the studied area, with most putative species being geographically restricted. Particularly notable are the high levels of population differentiation indicated by ddRAD analyses between nearby populations within putative species. This suggests that gene flow is limited, even between populations separated only by a few kilometres. This may lead to fast population differentiation, which in turn might drive speciation. Our data suggest that the species diversity of Paralimnadia in the Great Dividing Range is much higher than currently appreciated.

Echiura (commonly called spoon worms) are derived annelids that have an unsegmented sausage-shaped body with a highly extensible anterior end (i.e. a proboscis). Echiura currently contains two superfamilies: Echiurioidea (with Echiuridae, Urechidae and Thalassematidae) and Bonellioidea (with Bonelliidae, and Ikedidae). Ikedidae contains only Ikeda, which is distinctive in having a huge trunk, a highly elongate proboscis with stripes or dots, and numerous gonoducts. A recent molecular phylogeny of Echiura recovered Ikedidae as the sister group to Bonelliidae. However, due to relatively low support values for the monophyly of Bonelliidae, this relationship remains problematic. In this study, we reinvestigated the relationship of Bonelliidae and Ikedidae using an expanded dataset with more taxa and genes. In contrast to the previous results, our analyses strongly support that Ikeda is nested within Bonelliidae due to the placement of Maxmuelleria. On the basis of this result, we synonymise Ikedidae with Bonelliidae and transfer Ikeda to the latter, the diagnosis of which is amended. In addition, we synonymise Urechidae with its sister group Echiuridae because they share the synapomorphy of having anal chaetae rings. Furthermore, considering that recent phylogenetic studies have consistently recovered Echiura as the sister group to Capitelliidae within Annelida, we drop the rank of the echiuran clade to family-level and propose a revised classification: Thalassematidae with two subfamilies, Thalassematinae (with two tribes Echiurini and Thalassematini) and Bonelliinae. In addition, we identified a sample collected from the deep sea (∼1820 m) of Monterey Bay, California, based on its molecular data. This terminal unexpectedly formed the sister group to the eight genera of Thalassematini, most members of which are inhabitants of littoral zones.