During the ongoing partial taxonomic revision of the genus Echinolaophonte on the basis of populations previously collected from various shores of the Turkish coasts, a new species of Echinolaophonte was discovered and named Echinolaophonte mordoganensis sp. nov. The new species is morphologically most closely related to E. minuta and E. veniliae. The new species can easily be distinguished from its congeners by the combination of the following features: i) the shape of the rostrum, ii) having 2 ornamented setae instead of 1 on the syncoxa of the maxilliped, and iii) pattern difference in the P1-P4 setal formula in both male and female. The phylogenetic position of the new species in the genus has also been briefly discussed.

IntroductionThe order Harpacticoida is one of the 10 orders of subclass Copepoda (Martin and Davis, 2001) and contains approximately 6000 species in 645 genera, which belong to 59 families (Ahyong et al., 2011). Marine harpacticoids are mostly benthic microcrustaceans, although a few are planktonic or are symbiotic with other animals. They are commonly the second most abundant taxon after nematodes in marine sediments (

An attempt was made to test if Lourinia armata (Claus, 1866)—as it is currently diagnosed—represents a species complex. Detailed examination and comparisons of several specimens collected from different localities suggest that L. armata indeed represents a complex of four closely related morphospecies that can be differentiated from one another by only detailed observations. One of the four species is identified as Lourinia aff. armata and the other three species are described as new to science and named as Lourinia wellsi sp. nov., L. gocmeni sp. nov., and L. aldabraensis sp. nov. Detailed review of previous species records indicates that the genus Lourinia Wilson, 1924 is distributed worldwide. Ceyloniella nicobarica Sewell, 1940, originally described from Nicobar Island and previously considered a junior subjective synonym of L. armata is reinstated as Lourinia nicobarica (Sewell, 1940) comb. nov. on the basis of the unique paddle-shaped caudal ramus seta V. It is postulated that almost all of these records are unreliable in terms of representing true Lourinia aff. armata described herein. On the other hand, the comparative evaluation of the illustrations and descriptions in the published literature indicates the presence of several new species waiting to be discovered in the genus Lourinia.                 It has been determined that, according to updated modern keys, the recent inclusion of the monotypic genus Archeolourinia Corgosinho & Schizas, 2013 in the Louriniidae is not justified since Archeolourinia shermani Corgosinho & Schizas, 2013 does not belong to this family but should be assigned to the Canthocamptidae. On the other hand, it has been argued that the exact phylogenetic position of the Louriniidae still remains problematic since none of the diagnostic characters supports the monophyly of the family within the Oligoarthra. It has also been argued that the close relationship between Louriniidae and Canthocamptidae is supported since both families share the homologous sexual dimorphism (apophysis) on P3 endopod. The most important characteristic that can possibly be used to define Louriniidae is the reduction of maxilliped.

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