The diversity of Calocheiridius Beier & Turk, 1952 in Iran is still thought to be uncommon; with only two species reported recently: C. centralis (Beier, 1952), and C. iranicus Nassirkhani, 2014. The current research is devoted to representatives of the genus Calocheiridius from Iran, and led to the identification and description of two novel species: Calocheiridius rectilineatus sp. nov. and C. persicus sp. nov . The novel species were differentiated from their relatives using molecular and morphological analyses, based mainly unique morphometric features, variations in the number of setae along tergite I and the posterior end of the carapace and, trichobothrial patterns, among others. Furthermore, these species exhibit a mitochondrial DNA COI K2P genetic distance that varies from 12.7% to 14% when compared to the nearest relative, C. centralis. Phylogenetic analyses utilising the mitochondrial COI gene and nuclear 28S rDNA, and molecular species delimitation methods, further support description of these new species as separate taxonomic entities. An updated interactive identification key for all species of the genus Calocheiridius, created using DELTA software and based on various numeric and multistate characters, is also provided.
Interactive key, mtDNA, Morphology, ntDNA, Taxonomy
