Two new land planarian species (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida) from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest harbors the world's richest areas of land planarians (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida). Nevertheless, the number of undiscovered species from this biological unit remains seemingly high. Herein we describe Geoplana piriana Almeida & Carbayo, sp. nov. from the state of Rio de Janeiro, and Geoplana tingauna Kishimoto & Carbayo, sp. nov. from the state of Santa Catarina. Each species shows a dorsum with a unique color pattern among Geoplaninae species. Their internal morphology also differs: G. piriana sp. nov. shows a unique combination of features, including an extrabulbar, non-bifurcated prostatic vesicle, a non-folded male atrium, a horizontal, cylindrical penis papilla, a female atrium anteriorly narrowed, and lined with an epithelium with multilayered aspect. Geoplana tingauna sp. nov. possesses a prostatic vesicle constituted of a pair of branches opening into the very distal portion of a tubular, unpaired portion, a feature not seen in other Geoplaninae species.

We thank the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade and FATMA (Fundação de Amparo e Tecnologia do Meio Ambiente de Santa Catarina) for licensing the fieldwork; Nivaldo Gularte (Paulo Lopes, SC) for the enthusiastic guidance and motorcycle rides up to the hills; Juan R.E. García (Paulo Lopes, SC) for his kind and generous hospitality; Júlio Pedroni for the picture of the living specimen of G. piriana; Ana C.M. Vasconcelos (EACH, USP) for helping with histological processing; Leonardo Zerbone (EACH, USP) for helping RGK with histological study; two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Academic EnglishSolutions.com revised the English. ALA was funded by Pró-Reitoria de Graduação (USP), RGK by PIBIC/CNPq; FC has financial support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP).