A new freshwater ostracod genus from the northern Neotropical region and its phylogenetic position in the family Cyprididae (Podocopida)

Manuelcypris n. gen., along with two species M. chetumalensis n. sp. and M. tabascena n. sp., are described from Southern Mexico. Another three species are transferred into the new genus: M. cisternina (Furtos, 1936) comb. nov., known from the Yucatan Peninsula, was originally described in the genus Eucypris Vavra, 1891, while M. punctata (Keyser, 1975) comb. nov., from Florida, and M. antillensis (Broodbakker, 1982) comb. nov., from the West Indies, were originally described in the genus Heterocypris Claus, 1892. The latter two new combinations are based only on the literature data, while for M. cisternina we examined its type material. The new genus is attributed to Cyprinotinae, but with an isolated position based on the absence of any seta on the basal segment of the walking leg and the reduced chaetotaxy of the fifth leg. The validity of this genus is confirmed with molecular markers, 18S rDNA and 28S rDNA which were used in the phylogenetic reconstruction along with several newly obtained sequences and others downloaded from the GenBank belonging to closely related taxa. Two methods, Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood, used in the analysis support the new genus with 100 bootstrap values. We also provide a taxonomic key for the five representatives of the new genus.