Acroperus africanus Neretina & Kotov, 2015

Sinev, Artem Y., Dadykin, Ivan A., Umi, Wahidah A. D. & Yusoff, Fatimah M., 2025, New data on Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) of Peninsular Malaysia, Zootaxa 5604 (3), pp. 255-284 : 262-264

Acroperus africanus Neretina & Kotov, 2015

Fig. 5

Idris 1983: 128–130, Fig. 61 ( harpae ); Neretina & Kotov 2015: 517–524, Figs. 1–5; Sinev 2016: 457, Figs. 5A–D; Kotov et al. 2017: 238–240, Fig. 8.

Material examined. Several parthenogenetic females from Chini Lake , Pahang (3,43224° N, 102,92225° E), 19.10.2013 ; numerous parthenogenetic females, and one male from several locations at Bera Lake , Pahang, 01.02.2018 .

Acroperus africanus was described based on the material from Ethiopia and the Republic of South Africa ( Neretina & Kotov 2015). Later,the species was found in South Korea ( Kotov et al. 2017) and North-East Thailand (Sinev 2016; Tiang-nga et al. 2020). Earlier records of Acroperus from South-East Asia, including Malaysia ( Idris 1983), were attributed to A. harpae ( Korovchinsky 2013) , but their morphology was never studied in details. Acroperus harpae and A. africanus clearly differ in morphology of the antenna and male postabdomen.

Morphology of the studied parthenogenetic females fully agree with that from the description of A. africanus (see Neretina & Kotov 2015), including body of moderate height for the genus and moderately developed head keel ( Fig. 5A), small closely spaced denticles on posteroventral angle of valves ( Fig. 5B), postabdomen morphology typical of the genus ( Fig. 5C), antennal branches of similar length, presence of a short seta on basal segment of antennal exopodite, and uniform apical setae ( Fig. 5D). Prior to our study, males of A. africanus have been known only for Korean populations ( Kotov et al. 2017), while males from Africa have never been described. Studied male from Malaysia slightly differs from the South Korean specimens in shape of its postabdomen, the latter have somewhat broader posterior portion (see Kotov et al. 2017, Fig.8L), but this difference can be explained by an interspecies variability. Idris (1983) described outer morphology and the shape of postabdomens of both male and female of Acroperus from Malaysia, male morphology is the same as in studied material. For detailed description of female see Neretina & Kotov (2015).