Turbellarian taxonomic database

Abstract / Notes

"The land planarians in the genus Obama include the largest species of the Neotropical Geoplaninae.
Morphological discrimination of Obama species can be difficult, as many species are morphologically similar
and some present asymmetric – difficult to interpret – copulatory organs. New techniques are thus welcomed
to provide faster species description and identification. Here, we study several specimens of Obama by means
of mainly 2D and 3D ?CT-based images obtained through X-ray microcomputed tomography (?CT) of a paratype,
and, complementarily, histological sections of the holotype and a second paratype, which were digitized into
virtual slides. Comparison of these images with traditional histological sections and descriptions of the
known species of the genus allows us to conclude that our specimens constitute a new species, which we
describe here. We further evaluate the phylogenetic placement of the new species using gene fragments from the
mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and the nuclear elongation factor-1?. Raw and derivative ?CT
data and virtual histological sections were deposited in an open repository (GigaDB) and are freely available.
This work leads us to conclude that ?CT constitutes a relatively fast, inexpensive non-destructive method
that produces results comparable to those of traditional histology, and is thus amenable for describing
flatworm species."

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