Description of four new species and a revision of the genus Tripaphylus Richiardi in Anonymous, 1878 (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Sphyriidae).

Tripaphylus Richiardi in Anonymous, 1878 is one of the genera of the Sphyriidae Wilson, 1919 and it currently accommodates ten species. Only scanty descriptions are available for the females and some males of the species. Tripaphylus specimens, described and illustrated in this paper, were collected from elasmobranch hosts off the South African coast or came from the private collection of the late Dr G. Benz. Collected specimens were fixed and preserved in 70% ethanol, examined by light - and scanning electron microscopy, and compared with the known species. Descriptions and illustrations are provided for the transformed adult females and males of T. elongatus (Wilson, 1932) and T. versicolor (Wilson, 1919) while illustrated descriptions of the transformed adult females are also provided for T. ferox (Wilson, 1919) and T. vaissierei (Delamare Deboutteville & Nuñes-Ruivo, 1954). Additionally, the material previously reported as T. ferox is considered to represent T. elongatus and that reported as T. lobatus (Kirtisinghe, 1964) is considered a junior synonym of T. vaissierei. Based on the collected material the transformed adult female and male of T. lewisi n. sp. are described as well as the adult transformed females of T. benzi n. sp., T. hoi n. sp., and T. beatricae n. sp. A summarised review of the main features is provided for each of the previously described T. musteli (van Beneden, 1851), T. hemigalei Kirtisinghe, 1964, T. australis (Kabata, 1993), T. triakis (Castro Romero, 2001) and T. asymboli (Turner, Kyne & Bennett, 2003). Furthermore, reasons are provided for the recommendation that T. hemigalei be considered a species inquirenda. An identification key to the transformed adult females of all species of Tripaphylus is provided and the host records are also updated.