This paper documents the systematics of a new genus of orthotyline plant bugs, Xasmasoma, and the description of twelve new species. This further demonstrates the hyperdiversity of the family Miridae in Australia, and the biogeographic and host plant drivers of Xasmasoma diversification. The work provides the first molecular sequences of the Australian Orthotylini which corroborate the phylogenetic signal of the male genitalia.

Soft coral diversity is understudied in tropical northern Australia. Many species in turbid water are only rarely surveyed or collected. We describe a new genus and two new species of alcyoniid soft corals. The new genus is closely related to Sarcophyton and Lobophytum, which are ecologically dominant members of shallow coral reef communities.

The phylogenetic relationships within Squilloidea, the largest superfamily of mantis shrimps, have only been comprehensively studied using morphology. Here we present the first total-evidence phylogenetic analysis for the group, and within Stomatopoda. Our results show the merit in using a combination of morphological and molecular data to improve nodal support and resolve phylogenetic relationships.

A main impediment of biodiversity studies is the lack of accurate data on species numbers. Here we study the whole diversity of a family of mite harvestmen found in the tropics at both sides of the Atlantic, describe three new genera and 13 new species and present a comprehensive phylogeny of the group. Our results provide new insights into the biogeography of Neogoveidae and illustrate the need for careful taxonomic work in small soil animals.

Spiders in the genus Uthina have been thought to be very homogeneous in their ecology and morphology. Here we describe three new species from Bali, Java, and Sulawesi that demonstrate considerable ecological and morphological diversity within the genus. Molecular data suggest that all previously described species are closely related to each other and that the three new species represent separate clades within the genus.

Parasesarma is the most speciose genus of the family Sesarmidae, although it is represented in the western Indian Ocean by only five species of mangrove crabs. Based on combined morphological and molecular analyses, the East African P. guttatum is here split into two pseudocryptic species, and a new species, occurring only south of the Mozambique Channel, Parasesarma capensis, sp. nov., is described.

Monomorium is cosmopolitan and speciose genus of ants and a significant component of the ant fauna in Australia. This study provides the first multigene phylogenetic analysis for the Australian species, tests the monophyly of the Australian species groups and explores the genetic diversity of some species that exhibit high levels of morphological variation. We resurrect the genus Chelaner to encompass a diverse lineage of species with 12-segmented antennae and highlight a number of species with high COI diversity emphasising the need for a comprehensive species level revision of both Monomorium and Chelaner in Australia.

We describe a new species of the family Tithaeidae, Tithaeus odysseus sp. nov., discovered during a collecting campaign on the island of Mindanao. The description of this species expands the known distribution of the family and demonstrates another exception to the faunal break called Huxley’s Line (separating the Philippine biota from the Sunda Shelf). Molecular dating showed contemporaneous colonisation of Mindanao by the distantly related families Tithaeidae and Stylocellidae in the Cretaceous, likely via the Zamboanga Peninsula.