The Recent distribution of the freshwater ostracod genus <i>Sclerocypris</i> Sars, 1924 (type species <i>Sclerocypris clavularis</i> Sars, 1924; synonyms <i>Bharatcypris</i> Battish, 1978 and <i>Candonopsis</i> Sars, 1894 <i>pro parte</i>), subfamily Megalocypridinae Rome, 1965, is restricted to Africa and India (Martens, 1986; Martens & Coomans, 1990).<br/><br/>Recovery of fossils of <i>Sclerocypris</i> are not frequent and are restricted to Plio-Quaternary deposits of Kenya, with <i>Sclerocypris clavularis</i> Sars, 1924 from Lakes Turkana and Bogoria (Carbonel & Peypouquet, 1979; Carbonel <i>et al</i>., 1983, 1987; Cohen <i>et al</i>., 1983) and <i>Sclerocypris jenkinae</i> Klie, 1933 from Lakes Elmenteita and Naivasha (Lindroth, 1953; Cohen & Nielsen, 1986) and the Pliocene basal member of the Omo Series, Lake Turkana (Peypouquet <i>et al</i>., 1979). <i>Sclerocypris bicornis</i> (G. W. Müller, 1900) has been recorded (identified as <i>Chlamydotheca</i> sp.) in the Pleistocene of Egypt (Boukhari & Guernet, 1985).<br/><br/>Recent field work in Algarve, southern Portugal (Cabral <i>et al</i>., 2003, 2004, 2005), recorded the presence of <i>Sclerocypris</i>. It was represented by numerous juvenile specimens of a species related closely to the Recent species <i>Sclerocypris bicornis</i> in a probable Pleistocene lacustrine ostracod assemblage at Bolqueime associated with other Cypididae, Candonidae, Darwinulidae, Limnocytheridae and Cypridopsidae. The instars are characterized by the presence of long spines on the margins, as is common in many species of this genus (Martens, 1986, 1991), such as <i>Sclerocypris tuberculata</i> (Methuen, 1910), <i>Sclerocypris venusta</i> (Vavra, 1897) [illustrated in Martens, 1986] and <i>Sclerocypris clavularis</i> Sars, 1924 (Pl. 1, fig. 2). They also possess three large conical tubercles not present on adults, an important . . .