Eocene shallow-marine ostracods from Madagascar: southern end of the Tethys?

<p>Twenty-five genera and 32 species of Eocene shallow-marine ostracods from Madagascar were examined for taxonomy and palaeobiogeography. Eight new species – <i>Paijenborchellina madagascarensis</i> sp. nov., <i>Neocyprideis polygonoreticulata</i> sp. nov., <i>Alciella irizukii</i> sp. nov., <i>Neomonoceratina afroangulosa</i> sp. nov., <i>Muellerina eocenica</i> sp. nov., <i>Stigmatobradleya hunti</i> gen. et sp. nov., <i>Uroleberis paranuda</i> sp. nov., <i>Xestoleberis renemai</i> sp. nov. – and one new genus – <i>Stigmatobradleya</i> gen. nov. – are described. Eocene Malagasy ostracods showed a strong affinity to the Eocene East Tethyan fauna in Arab-Africa and Indo-Pakistan. They also showed certain affinity to the Eocene West Tethyan fauna in Europe. One species, <i>Pokornyella lamarckiana</i> sensu lato, showed a very wide Eocene geographical distribution, covering Europe, Indo-Pakistan, Arab-Africa, Japan and perhaps North America. These results indicate that the East African, Arabian, and Indo-Pakistan regions constitute the East Tethyan palaeobiogeographical sub-realm, with considerable faunal similarity found across the regions. This sub-realm extends to south-eastern Africa in the south and is a part of the broader Tethyan palaeobiogeographical realm with certain, but less, palaeobiogeographical similarity. The spatial extent of the Tethys palaobiogeographical realm <i>sensu lato</i> includes Asia-Oceania in the east and eastern America in the west. Based on our results, we suggest a need to update the scheme of global ostracod biogeographical division.</p> <p><a href="http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C98E65A2-FEB8-4D63-B294-7A1A22C51F5E" target="_blank">http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C98E65A2-FEB8-4D63-B294-7A1A22C51F5E</a>