Morphological and molecular evidence support four new Liberonautes Bott, 1955 (Decapoda, Potamonautidae, Liberonautinae) species of freshwater crabs from Sierra Leone, West Africa

Abstract Four new Liberonautes species of freshwater crabs are described from material collected during an expedition to the rainforests of Sierra Leone, West Africa. Liberonautes kasonko sp. nov., L. njala sp. nov., L. schubarti sp. nov. and L. sugarloaf sp. nov. are recognized based on a combination of morphological characters including the carapace, adult male chelipeds, and first gonopods, and on genetic evidence involving analyses of partial segments of the mitochondrial genes of COI, 16S rRNA and 12S rRNA. Diagnoses, illustrations, and a tree of phylogenetic relationships based on mtDNA sequences, as well as a map showing the distributions of the new species are provided.