Cypretta tenuicauda as the type species of the genus Cypretta Vávra (1895) described Cypretta, albeit as a subgenus of Cypridopsis,based on the species Cypridopsis (Cypretta) tenuicauda from Zanzibar (Africa). G.W. Müller (1898) raised Cypretta to the rank of genus and described his species Cypretta costata G.W. Müller, 1898 from Madagascar (Africa). Vávra (1895) had described the marginal septa in C. tenuicauda as “grobe, weit voneinander stehende Porenkanäle” (large, widely spaced pore canals), while Sars (1889) described them as “distant transverse grooves” in his species Cypridopsis globulus Sars, 1889 from Australia. G.W. Müller (loc.cit.) was the first to recognize these structures as transversal septa between the outer lamella and the inner calcified lamella of the valves (see also Sohn & Kornicker 1973), which he observed and described from his species C. costata. He then postulated that both his species C. costata and C. globulus belonged in the same genus as C. tenuicauda, namely Cypretta. In a footnote, he also referred to the illustrations of Cypridopsis minna King, 1855 by Sars (1894) from New Zealand. Most likely independently from G.W. Müller (1898), Daday (1900) in his monograph on freshwater ostracods from Hungary, referred Cypris viridis Thomson, 1879 from Australia, Cypridopsis minna King, 1855 from New Zealand, Cypridopsis turgida Sars, 1896 from Australia and Pionocypris assimilis Sars, 1895 from South Africa to the same genus as Vávra’s C. tenuicauda, namely Cypretta. Whereas G.W. Müller (1898) was correct that C. costata and C. globulus both belong to Cypretta s.l., Daday (1900) misinterpreted at least the position of P. assimilis, which is now considered to belong to the genus Cypridopsis Brady, 1867 and is seen as a synonym of Cypridopsis vidua (O.F. Müller, 1776) (see Meisch et al. 2019). Thanks to the interpretation (and illustration) of the characteristic marginal septa in both valves by G.W. Müller, and immediately afterwards the recognition of this character by Daday (1900), the genus Cypretta became recognizable, even though C. tenuicauda as a species remained unidentifiable.

Published as part of Ferreira, Vitor Góis, Higuti, Janet & Martens, Koen, 2023, Redescription of the type species of the genus Cypretta (Ostracoda, Crustacea) with notes on the taxonomy of the genus, pp. 79-92 in Zootaxa 5231 (1) on pages 87-88, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5231.1.6, http://zenodo.org/record/7571933