A new species of Lortiella (Mollusca : Bivalvia : Unionoidea : Hyriidae) from northern Australia

Abstract

A new species of Lortiella, L. opertanea n. sp., is described from the Katherine, Daly and Douglas Rivers, Northern Territory, and disjunctly in the Carson and King Edward Rivers of Western Australia. It appears to be the sister taxon to the allopatric Lortiella rugata (Sowerby, 1868), the type species of the genus, which occurs in drainages between the two sets of disjunct populations. Some notes on the anatomy of the genus are provided and the subfamily Lortiellinae Iredale, 1934 is synonymised with Velesunioninae.