Taxonomic Studies on Recent Marine Podocopid Ostracoda From the Inland Sea of Seto

With Text-figures 1-23, and Tables 123I INTRODUCTION Marine Ostracoda occur abundantly in intertidal and subtidal zones along the shores of Japan and play some important roles as a member of benthoses.Only a few studies, however, have been made up to date, and until 1975 only about 200 recent species, including 150 marine podocopid species, have been reported from Japan and its adjacent seas.Besides, more than half of them have been described by paleontologists, who are interested in the valves alone, and who have not examined the soft parts.In order for a more exact identification and for a more natural systematization, attention should be paid to the soft parts as well as the calcareous parts.The deficiency of the systematic information also has much hindered the advance in the ecological and the biological researches on the ostracods.Recently, the author has been collecting ostracods at a number of shores along the central area of the Inland Sea of Seto, and has discovered 66 podocopid species, including 34 new species, which are to be described here (52 species of them have already been published).The appendages of these species are described and figured in detail, as the soft parts of Japanese species are hardly clarified and as they are important to identify the species.In addition, the collecting data from about 30 stations may give some information on the zoogeography of the ostracods.