Two new species of Afrithelphusa Bott, 1969, from Sierra Leone, West Africa (Brachyura: Deckeniidae: Deckeniinae)
Abstract
This work focuses on two new species of freshwater crabs from Sierra Leone, West Africa: Afrithelphusa outamba sp. nov., and A. mano sp. nov. These taxa are described based on newly collected material. Diagnoses, illustrations, and a distribution map are provided, and their conservation status is discussed. These new taxa raise the number of species of Afrithelphusa from four (A. afzelii (Colosi, 1924), A. gerhildae Bott, 1969, A. leonensis (Cumberlidge, 1987), and A. monodosa (Bott, 1959)) to six. An identification key is provided to distinguish between the six species of Afrithelphusa, and a tree of phylogenetic relationships based on two mtDNA loci (COI and 16S RNA) is provided, which supports the recognition of the species assigned to this genus.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Pierre A. Mvogo Ndongo, Hassan Sesay, Thomas von Rintelen, Paul F. Clark, Neil Cumberlidge
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