Some Neogene and recent marine ostracods from Sabah, Malaysia.

Samples from the Neogene and Recent of Sabah, Malaysia, have yielded 43 cladocopine, platycopine and podocopine ostracod genera which are recorded and variously described. The genera Polycope. Cytherelloidea and Atjehella are described in detail and contain a total of 27 new species. Polycope is recorded from this part of the world for the first time. Newly discovered morphological structures suggest that shell ornament may be a valuable aid (to soft parts) in the taxonomy of the genus. The functional significance of many ornamental features of the shell is probably as strengthening devices. Morphology of the marginal pore canals is particularly useful in distinguishing the originally monotypic Atjehella. The existing view, based on foraminifera (Whittaker Hodgkinson, 1979), that the Pliocene Togopi Formation of Sabah was deposited in shallow marine conditions (inner shelf to littoral) is substantiated by its ostracod fauna. At specific level the ostracod assemblages of the Pliocene Togopi Formation and Recent of Darvel Bay, Sabah are new; a comparison of the ostracod fauna of Sabah to known ostracod faunas from the Indian Ocean and adjacent areas (e.g. Western Australia, Java-Sumatra, Burma, Western India and the Persian Gulf) reveals a pattern of discrete faunal areas within a broadly defined Indo-Pacific faunal province.