Genus Dolicholana Bruce, 1986

Dolicholana Bruce, 1986: 122; Wetzer et al. 1987: 2 (key), Keable 1999: 396, Bruce et al. 2002: 145.

Type species. Cirolana elongata H. Milne-Edwards, 1840; by original designation.

Remarks on the genus. The genus Dolicholana Bruce, 1986 includes four species: Dolicholana brucei Paiva & Souza-Filho, 2015, Dolicholana elongata (Milne Edwards, 1840), Dolicholana enigma Keable, 1999, and Dolicholana porcellana (Barnard, 1936) . Dolicholana resembles both Natatolana Bruce, 1981 and Politolana Bruce, 1981, and in order to distinguish these genera, Bruce (1986) emphasized the projection of the frontal lamina, the morphology of the peduncle of antenna 1, and the absence of plumose setae on the endopod of pleopods 3–5 in Dolicholana . Keable (1999) emended the diagnosis of the genus and added a further character, the formation of a 90° angle between the frontal lamina and the clypeus, which is unique in the cirolanid genera.

Keable (1999) described some additional diagnostic characters of the genus Dolicholana and, in the case of the pleotelson, he stated that the dorsal surface is smooth with an anterodorsal depression, with no tubercles, pits or ridges, the margins are convex, meeting at an acute or rounded apex, with robust setae, and abundant plumose setae restricted to the posterolateral margins, but no marginal teeth-like serrations. In the adult males, the appendix masculina of pleopod 2 arises basally, although in juvenile D. enigma, it arises medially. In the new species described here, however, the distal margin of the pleotelson has no robust setae, and the adult appendix masculina arises medially (Fig. 6B). Despite these differences, we decided to allocate the new species to the genus Dolicholana until a more ample phylogenetic review of the Cirolanidae can clarify the relationships between this and other related genera, as suggested by Keable (1999).