Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 5589 No. 1: 19 Feb. 2025
Type: Article
Published: 2025-02-19
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5589.1.10
Page range: 112-126
Abstract views: 93
PDF downloaded: 4

A new earthworm species of the genus Amynthas (Clitellata: Megascolecidae) from northern Taiwan, false synonymy between Amynthas corticis (Kinberg, 1867) and Amynthas sheni (Chen, 1935) and other taxonomic issues relating to A. corticis

Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute; Ministry of Agriculture; 1 Ming-shen East Road; Jiji; Nantou 552; Taiwan
Department of Life Science; National Taiwan University; 1 Roosevelt Road; Section 4; Taipei 106; Taiwan; Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; National Taiwan University; 1 Roosevelt Road; Section 4; Taipei 106; Taiwan
Annelida Earthworms Amynthas corticis Amynthas sheni new species Taiwan

Abstract

This study describes a new species of earthworms belonging to the genus Amynthas (Clitellata: Megascolecidae) from northern Taiwan. It is named Amynthas popi sp. nov. It is a large earthworm with four pairs of spermathecal pores in 5/6–8/9. It has a postsetal papilla medial to each male porophore and papillae closely or widely paired in presetal VIII, widely paired in postsetal XIX, and occasionally more closely paired in presetal XIX. Its compact prostate glands together with short, stout and horizontal prostatic ducts are rarely seen among the native Amynthas earthworms known from Taiwan. Amynthas sheni (Chen, 1935) is a false synonym of Amynthas corticis (Kinberg, 1867) as the former has postsetal papillae on ventrum of VIII and occasionally also on IX, four pairs of esophageal hearts in X–XIII, well-developed prostate glands in XVI–XXI and long, U-curved prostatic ducts, which clearly set it apart from the latter. Other taxonomic issues relating to A. corticis are discussed. Additionally, Amynthas jampeanus fumigatus (Michaelsen, 1899) should be regarded as a subspecies of Amynthas bonthainensis (Benham, 1896) since it bears a very close resemblance to A. bonthainensis than to Amynthas jampeanus (Benham, 1896). The following combination is proposed: Amynthas bonthainensis fumigatus (Michaelsen, 1899) comb. nov.

 

References

  1. Baird, W. (1869) Description of a new species of earthworm (Megascolex diffringens) found in north Wales. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1869, 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1869.tb07288.x
  2. Bantaowong, U., Chanabun, R. & Inkhavilay, K. (2023) Two new species of terrestrial earthworms of the genus Amynthas Kinberg, 1867 (Clitellata, Oligochaeta, Megascolecidae) from northern Laos. Tropical Natural History, Supplement 7, 165–172.
  3. Benham, W.B. (1896) Some earthworms from Celebes. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 6, 18, 429–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222939608680484
  4. Blakemore, R.J. (2003) Japanese earthworms (Annelida: Oligochaeta): a review and checklist of species. Organisms, Diversity & Evolution, 3 (Electronic Supplement 11), 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1078/1439-6092-00082
  5. Blakemore, R.J. (2010) Cosmopolitan Earthworms – an Eco-Taxonomic Guide to the Peregrine Species of the World. 4th Edition. VermEcology, Yokohama, 840 pp.
  6. Blakemore, R.J. (2011) Description of a new Amynthas earthworm (Megascolecidae sensu stricto) from Thailand. Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Series A, 37 (1), 9–13.
  7. Blakemore, R.J. (2012) Japanese earthworms revisited a decade on (Oligochaeta: Megadrilacea). Zoology in the Middle East, 58 (Supplementum 4), 15–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2012.10648981
  8. Blakemore, R.J. (2013a) Jeju-do earthworms (Oligochaeta: Megadrilacea)-Quelpart Island revisited. Journal of Species Research, 2 (1), 15–54. https://doi.org/10.12651/JSR.2013.2.1.015
  9. Blakemore, R.J. (2013b) Megascolex (Perichaeta) diffringens Baird, 1869 and Pheretima pingi Stephenson, 1925 types compared to the Amynthas corticis (Kinberg, 1867) and A. carnosus (Goto & Hatai, 1899) species-groups (Oligochaeta: Megadrilacea: Megascolecidae). Journal of Species Research, 2 (2), 99–126. https://doi.org/10.12651/JSR.2013.2.2.099
  10. Blakemore, R.J. & Lee, S. (2013) Survey of Busan Oligochaeta earthworms supported by DNA barcodes. Journal of Species Research, 2 (2), 127–144. https://doi.org/10.12651/JSR.2013.2.2.127
  11. Blakemore, R.J., Lee, S. & Seo, H.-Y. (2015) Account of montane and insular speciation in some Korean megadriles (Annelida: Oligochaeta). Journal of Species Research, 4 (1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.12651/JSR.2015.4.1.001
  12. Blakemore, R.J., Park, T.S. & Seo, H.-Y. (2012) A new Korean earthworm (Oligochaeta: Megadrilacea: Megascolecidae). Zootaxa, 3368 (1), 256–262. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3368.1.13
  13. Chang, C.-H., Snyder, B.A. & Szlavecz, K. (2016) Asian pheretimoid earthworms in North America north of Mexico: An illustrated key to the genera Amynthas, Metaphire, Pithemera, and Polypheretima (Clitellata: Megascolecidae). Zootaxa, 4179 (3), 495–529. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4179.3.7
  14. Chang, C.-H., Shen, H.-P., Sherlock, E. & Csuzdi, Cs. (2024) A review of the earthworm Amynthas masatakae (Beddard, 1892) (Clitellata: Megascolecidae), with designation of two new synonyms. Biodiversity Data Journal, 12, e119599. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e119599
  15. Chen, Y. (1931) On the terrestrial Oligochaeta from Szechuan. Contributions from the Biological Laboratory of the Science Society of China, Zoological Series, 7 (3), 117–171.
  16. Chen, Y. (1933) A preliminary survey of the earthworms of the lower Yangtze Valley. Contributions from the Biological Laboratory of the Science Society of China, Zoological Series, 9 (6), 177–296.
  17. Chen, Y. (1935) On a small collection of earthworms from Hongkong with descriptions of some new species. Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, 6, 33–59.
  18. Dong, Y., Law, M.M.S., Jiang, J. & Qiu, J. (2019) Three new species and one subspecies of the Amynthas corticis-group from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China (Oligochaeta, Megascolecidae). ZooKeys, 884, 23–42. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.884.30988
  19. Easton, E.G. (1981) Japanese earthworms: a synopsis of the Megadrile species (Oligochaeta). Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Zoology series, 40 (2), 33–65.
  20. Folmer, O., Black, M., Hoeh, W., Lutz, R. & Vrijenhoek, R. (1994) DNA primers for amplification of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I from diverse metazoan invertebrates. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 3, 294–299.
  21. Gates, G.E. (1972) Burmese earthworms: an introduction to the systematics and biology of megadrile oligochaetes with special reference to Southeast Asia. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 62 (7), 1–326. https://doi.org/10.2307/1006214
  22. Goto, S. & Hatai, S. (1899) New or imperfectly known species of earthworms. No. 2. Annotationes Zoologicae Japonenses, 3, 13–24.
  23. Grub, E. (1879) Annelida. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 168, 554−556. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1879.0057
  24. Hoang, D.T., Chernomor, O., Von Haeseler, A., Minh, B.Q. & Vinh, L.S. (2018) UFBoot2: improving the ultrafast bootstrap approximation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35 (2), 518−522. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msx281
  25. Kalyaanamoorthy, S., Minh, B.Q., Wong, T.K., Von Haeseler, A. & Jermiin, L.S. (2017) ModelFinder: fast model selection for accurate phylogenetic estimates. Nature Methods, 14 (6), 587−589. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4285
  26. Kinberg, J.G.H. (1867) Annulata nova. Öfversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens Förhandlingar, 23, 97–103.
  27. Kobayashi, S. (1936) Distribution and some external characteristics of Pheretima (Ph.) carnosa (Goto et Hatai) from Korea. Science Reports of the Tohoku Imperial University, 11 (1), 115–138.
  28. Larkin, M.A., Blackshields, G., Brown, N.P., Chenna, R., McGettigan, P.A., McWilliam, H., Valentin, F., Wallace, I.M., Wilm, A., Lopez, R., Thompson, J.D., Gibson, T.J. & Higgins, D.G. (2007) Clustal W and Clustal X version 2.0. Bioinformatics, 23, 2947–2948. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btm404
  29. Michaelsen, W. (1899) Terricolen von verschiedenen Gebieten der Erde. Jahrbuch der Hamburgischen Wissenschaftlichen Anstalten, 16, 1–122. [in German]
  30. Nguyen, L.T., Schmidt, H.A., Von Haeseler, A. & Minh, B.Q. (2015) IQ-TREE: a fast and effective stochastic algorithm for estimating maximum-likelihood phylogenies. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 32 (1), 268–274. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu300
  31. Perrier, E. (1872) Recherches pour servir a l'histoire des Lombriciens terrestres. Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, 8, 5–198. [in French] https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.12201
  32. Rota, E., Martinsson, S., Erséus, C., Petushkov, V.N., Rodionova, N.S. & Omodeo, P. (2018) Green light to an integrative view of Microscolex phosphoreus (Dugès, 1837) (Annelida: Clitellata: Acanthodrilidae). Zootaxa, 4496 (1), 175–189. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4496.1.13
  33. Semblat, J.P., Wajnberg, E., Dalmasso, A., Abad, P. & Castagnone-Sereno, P. (1998) High-resolution DNA fingerprinting of parthenogenetic root-knot nematodes using AFLP analysis, Molecular Ecology, 7 (1), 119–125. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-294x.1998.00326.x
  34. Shen, H.-P. (2012) Three new earthworms of the genus Amynthas (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from eastern Taiwan with redescription of Amynthas hongyehensis Tsai and Shen, 2010. Journal of Natural History, 46 (37–38), 2259–2283. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2012.716867
  35. Shen, H.-P. (2018) Biogeography meets taxonomy: Distribution-based inferences on the accuracy of identification and synonymization of East Asian earthworms. Zootaxa, 4496 (1), 313–336. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4496.1.26
  36. Shen, H.-P., Chang, C.-H. & Chih, W.-J. (2016) Four new earthworm species of the genus Amynthas (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from southwestern Taiwan with re-description of Amynthas tungpuensis Tsai, Shen and Tsai, 1999. Journal of Natural History, 50(29–30), 1889–1910. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2016.1180721
  37. Shen, H.-P., Chang, C.-H. & Chih, W.-J. (2019) Two new earthworm species of the genus Amynthas (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) from central Taiwan, with comments on some recent species assignments in Amynthas and Metaphire. Zootaxa, 4658 (1), 101–123. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4658.1.4
  38. Shen, H.-P., Csuzdi, Cs. & Chang, C.-H. (2024) A re-examination of the pheretimoid earthworms reported in James et al. (2005), false synonymy between Drawida barwelli (Beddard, 1886) and Drawida beddardi (Rosa, 1890) and comments on recent publications on East and Southeast Asian earthworms. European Journal of Taxonomy. [accepted]
  39. Shen, H.-P., Yu, H.-T. & Chen, J.-H. (2012) Parthenogenesis in two Taiwanese mountain earthworms Amynthas catenus Tsai et al., 2001 and Amynthas hohuanmontis Tsai et al., 2002 (Oligochaeta, Megascolecidae) revealed by AFLP. European Journal of Soil Biology, 51, 30–36 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2012.03.007
  40. Taheri, S., James, S., Roy, V., Decaëns, T., Williams, B.W., Anderson, F., Rougerie, R., Chang, C.-H., Brown, G., Cunha, L., Stanton, D.W.G., Da Silva, E., Chen, J.-H., Lemmon, A.R., Moriarty Lemmon, E., Bartz, M., Baretta, D., Barois, I., Lapied, E., Coulis, M. & Dupont, L. (2018) Complex taxonomy of the ‘brush tail’ peregrine earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 124, 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.02.021
  41. Tamura, K., Stecher, G. & Kumar, S. (2021) MEGA11: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 11. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38 (7), 3022–3027. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab120
  42. Tsai, C.-F., Shen, H.-P. & Tsai, S.-C. (2010) Four new species of Amynthas earthworms (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) from the Central Mountain Range of southern Taiwan. Journal of Natural History, 44 (21–24), 1251–1267. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222931003624788
  43. Tsai, C.-F., Shen, H.-P., Tsai, S.-C. & Lee, H.-H. (2007) Four new species of terrestrial earthworms belonging to the genus Amynthas (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from Taiwan with discussion on speculative synonyms and species delimitation in oligochaete taxonomy. Journal of Natural History, 41 (5–8), 357–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222930701201279