NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY 13 (2): 326-336 ©NwjZ, Oradea, Romania, 2017 Article No.: e161805 http://biozoojournals.ro/nwjz/index.html New earthworm records from the Central Zagros Mountain, Iran with description of a new species Robabeh LATIF1, Masoumeh MALEK1* and Csaba CSUZDI2 1. School of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of living organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. E-mails:
[email protected],
[email protected] 2. Department of Zoology, Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, Hungary. E-mail:
[email protected] *Corresponding author, M. Malek, E-mail:
[email protected] Received: 25. January 2016 / Accepted: 22. June 2016 / Available online: 27. July 2016 / Printed: December 2017 Abstract. The earthworm fauna of Iran is inadequately known. Up till now only 20 species were recorded for the country including 9 autochthonous and 11 peregrine species. The Zagros Mts. of Iran possesses unique geographical and climatic conditions that support a rich biota. Surprisingly enough the earthworm fauna of the region has not been studied earlier. A new survey carried out in the Central Zagros Mountain resulted in recording 24 earthworm species distributed in two families, Lumbricidae (22 species) and Acanthodrilidae (two species) including 6 new country records (Aporrectodea longa, D. pentheri, D. semitica, Microscolex dubius, Microscolex phosphoreus) and furthermore a species new to science; Eisenia omranii sp. nov. According to the zoogeographic composition, out of the 24 species recorded, 14 are widely introduced peregrine ones and 10 are autochtonous of East-Mediterranean origin. In comparison with previously surveyed Elburz region with 14 recorded earthworm species, the Zagrosian earthworm fauna proved to be much richer in term of species number.