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Vol. 56, 2017
(update: 2017.10.17; 11.02)
An Integrated
Morphological and Molecular Approach to A New Species Description of
Amphipods in the Niphargidae from Two Caves in West of Iran
Mahmood Mamaghani-Shishvan1, Somayeh Esmaeili-Rineh1,*, and Cene Fišer2
doi:10.6620/ZS.2017.56-33
1Department
of Biology, Faculty of Science, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.
E-mail: mamaghani_sh@yahoo.com (Mamaghani-Shishvan)
2Department
of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot
111, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia. E-mail: Cene.Fišer@bf.uni-lj.si
(Received 25 August 2017; Accepted 12 October 2017; Communicated by Benny K.K. Chan)
Mahmood Mamaghani-Shishvan, Somayeh Esmaeili-Rineh, and Cene Fišer (2017)
The cave-dwelling fauna of Zagros region (Northern Iran) has been
insufficiently studied. Most of the known cave-specialized species (15
out of 21) belong to the genus Niphargus Schiödte, 1849, yet species
composition of this genus is not resolved. In this research, we studied
Niphargus specimens from two recently sampled caves, Shoei and
Darvish-Olya Caves, from Kurdistan Province in Iran. The specimens
belong to a single, yet undescribed species, which can be diagnosed
using mitochondrial (COI) and nuclear sequences (28S rDNA gene
sequences) as well as several morphological traits. Based on combined
evidence from morphology and molecular characters, we described and
named new species, N. kurdistanensis
sp. nov.. The newly described species is phylogenetically nested within
the clade comprising Iranian species. We provide a new and revised
identification key for Niphargus from the Middle East region.
Key Words: 28S rDNA, COI, Niphargus, Amphipoda, Morphological characters, Kurdistan, Iran.
Correspondence: E-mail: sesmaeili@razi.ac.ir
Citation: Mamaghani-Shishvan M, Esmaeili-Rineh S, Fišer
C. 2017. An integrated morphological and molecular approach to a new
species description of amphipods in the Niphargidae from two caves in
west of Iran. Zool Stud 56:33. doi:10.6620/ZS.2017.56-33.
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