Four new species of Gomphocythere (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from Lake Tanganyika, East Africa

Four new species of the ostracod genus Gomphocythere are described from Lake Tanganyika (East Africa): Gomphocythere downingi n. sp. G. coheni n. sp., G. wilsoni n. sp., and G. woutersi n. sp. All species are endemic to the lake and are found within a variety of substrates and depths. The addition of these four new species brings the total number of endemic Gomphocythere species in Lake Tanganyika to nine. Other Gomphocythere species are known from water bodies throughout East and South Africa and in the Levant. Brooding is an important, but not a unique, preadaptation for the persistence and taxic prolific speciation of this lineage in Lake Tanganyika.