Abstract
Abstract Four species of the thermosbaenacean genus Tethysbaena Wagner, 1994 are described from Oman as T. barbatula n. sp., T. tristani n. sp., T. cryptofallax n. sp. and T. spec. from four isolated groundwater aquifers north and south of the Hajar Mountains in the north and two small isolated aquifers near Salalah and Marbat in the south. It is suggested that the speciation into these separate species is due to regressions of the Tethys Sea. The rising of dry land (mountain ridges) some time at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary would have constituted major barriers for isolated populations of the ancestral species. Not only morphological differences support the specific division into species, also the results of a DNA analysis from an earlier study by Cánovas et al. (2016) clearly support the present division into two localized, isolated species in the southern part of Oman.
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