New freshwater mussels from two Southeast Asian genera Bineurus and Thaiconcha (Pseudodontini, Gonideinae, Unionidae)

Abstract

Abstract The Mekong and Chao Phraya rivers harbor a species-rich freshwater mussel assemblage containing a large radiation of the Pseudodontini species. Members of the genera Bineurus Simpson 1900 and Thaiconcha Bolotov et al., 2020 primarily inhabit small and medium-sized tributaries of these rivers. Here, we present an integrative taxonomic review of these genus-level clades. We show that Bineurus contains four species: B. mouhotii (Lea, 1863), B. exilis (Morelet, 1866) stat. rev., B. anodontinum (Rochebrune, 1882) stat. rev., and B. loeiensis sp. nov. In its turn, Thaiconcha comprises three species: T. callifera (Martens, 1860), T. munelliptica sp. nov., and T. thaiensis sp. nov. Two species, Pseudodon ovalis Morlet, 1889 and P. thomsoni Morlet, 1884, are considered here as questionable taxa. These findings further highlight that Southeast Asia represents a significant evolutionary hotspot of freshwater mussels, which requires further international collaborative research and conservation efforts.