Iranian journal of animal biosystematics
Volume:8 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2012

Aphid parasitoids (Braconidae: Aphidiinae) in several localities of Kerman province, Southeastern Iran were studied between 2007 and 2008 and 20 species belonging to eight genera were identified. Parasitoids were reared from 25 field-collected aphid species occurring on 31 host plant species. In the present study, 83 parasitoid-aphid-plant associations, their aphid hosts, and the respective host plants were determined. Nineteen species (except Lysiphlebus fabarum (Marshall, 1896)) were new records for Kerman province and two species (Praon flavinode (Haliday, 1833) and Praon unitum Mescheloff and Rosen, 1988) were new records for Iran. An illustrated identification key to species is presented.

Mahi sefid (Cyprinidae) is an economically important fish in the south Caspian Sea. Specimens was collected from the Lamir River, Sefid Rud, Shir Rud and Tajan Rivers and analyzed at 38 microsatellite DNA loci. Eight primers out of the thirty analyzed loci were polymorphic in all sampling regions. The highest observed heterozygosity (1) was in locus Ca1 in Sefid Rud and lowest was 0.07 in locus SYP5 in Lamir River. The highest expected heterozygosity was 0.92 in locus SYP4 in Shir Rud and lowest was 0.24 in locus SYP6 in Tajan River. The average allele per locus was 7.22, maximum allele per locus was 15 and minimum allele per locus was two. The highest genetic distance was between Shir Rud and Tajan River (0.07) and lowest genetic distance was between Sefid Rud and Tajan River (0.05). All loci and all rivers deviated from Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium expectations (P<0.01) except at the SPY6 locus. Populations clustered in three groups corresponding to Shir Rud, Lamir Rivers and Tajan-Sefid Rud.

Kurdistan Province in the western Iran possesses varied climatic and geographical conditions that led to rich biodiversity. An investigation on the status of lizards in this Province was carried out from June 2010 to September 2011. A total of 73 specimens were collected and identified. The collected specimens represented four families, 10 genera, and 14 species and subspecies, including Agamidae: Laudakia nupta nupta, Laudakia caucasia and Trapelus lessonae, Gekkonidae: Cyrtopodion scabrum, Asaccus kurdistanensis, Lacertidae: Eremias montanus, Eremias sp. (1) and Eremias sp. (2) (unknown taxa which may be related to E. persica complex), Apathya cappadocica urmiana, A. c. muhtari, Lacerta media media and Ophisops elegans, Scinicidae: Eumeces schneideri princeps and Trachylepis aurata transcaucasica. With respect to the data which was reported by Rastegar Pouyani et al. (2008) and Anderson (1999) Eremias sp. (1) and Eremias sp. (2) may belong to two new taxa, Apathya cappadocica muhtari is a new record from Iran, and also Eremias montanus is a new record from Kurdistan Province. The Lacertidae with six species, showed thehighest diversity among the families represented here.

The Barn Owl, Tyto alba (Scopoli, 1769), occurs worldwide and shows a considerable amount of morphological and geographical variation, leading to the recognition of many subspecies around the world. Yet comprehensive study on this species needs to be done. Data from mitochondrial gene (CYTB) with 620bp length is analyzed for 30 individuals around the world. Maximum likelihood (ML), maximum parsimony (MP) and bayesiananalysis showed considerable genetic variation between alba clade (Old World) and furcata clade (New World). The amounts of genetic variation within each of these clades are in ranges from 0.4%-1.6% but variation between clades is 7.21%. This data may suggest that Barn Owls of the Old World were a separate species from those of the New World. We found high amount of genetic variation between T. a. stertens from Indonesia and alba clade and we didn’t find any support for recognition of T. bargei as a separate species.

Twenty species and nine genera belonging to the family Pteromalidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) were collected in the present study in different locations of Khorasan Razavi Province, Northeastern Iran between 2009 and 2010. The identified species belong to three subfamilies: Miscogasterinae (1 species), Ormocerinae (2 species) and Pteromalinae (17 species). Systasis parvula Thomson, 1876 and Mesopolobus sericeus(Förster, 1770) are reported for the first time from Iran. Short taxonomic comments, available biological data as well as geographical distribution for each species are briefly mentioned.

A morphological study of the short sea snake, Lapemis curtus was carried out. Two specimens of L. curtus were collected during fieldwork in vast area of west of the Chabahar Bay Mouth (Gulf of Oman) in 2011 A list of new important identification morphological characteristics of this species is also provided. The sea snakes are comprised of at least two groups: (1) Laticauda, which spend much of their life at sea but come on land to lay their eggs, and like terrestrial snakes have fully developed ventral scales, and (2) hydrophiid, the viviparous and fully aquatic “true” sea snakes, which have many morphological adaptations to a fully marine life (Keogh, 1998). While Rasmussen et al. 2011) has stated that the taxonomic status of the sea snakes is still under review and no general agreement exists at the moment. Traditionally, sea snakes have been regarded as one family, Hydrophiidae, with Laticauda as the most primitive genus. Sea snakes occur in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the east coast of Africa to the Gulf of Panama. Most species are found in the China Sea, Indonesia, and the Australian region. They have also been found in lakes in Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and the Rennell Island (Rasmussen, 2001). Many species of sea snakes are recorded from different regions of Persian Gulf. Studies on sea snakes tend to be poor because of logistic difficulties inherent in sampling them (Palot and Radhakrishnan, 2010). Lapemis curtus (Shaw, 1802) is a moderate sized (up to 900mm) venomous sea snake distributed from the Southwest Pacific to the Persian Gulf (De Silva, 2011). As the identification of sea snakes to the species level is very difficult, morphological characters are very important for identification of this sea snake in the area.

The five-toed Jerboa genus Allactaga includes 12 morphospecies, the majority of which were described in the 19th century. Five morphospecies are native to Iran, including A. elater (Lichtenstein, 1828), A. williamsi Thomas, 1897, A. hotsoni Thomas, 1920, A. firouzi Womochel, 1978, and A. toussi Darvish et al., 2008. However, Shenbrot (2009) determined, by multivariate analysis, that A. firouzi is synonymous with A. hotsoni. Attallah and Harrison (1968) demonstrated that A. euphratica Thomas, 1881, and A. williamsi are conspecific. They reduced A. williamsi to subspecific status under A. euphratica, based on the examination of external and cranial characters. Recent data have shown that A. euphratica and A. williamsi are two distinct species (Colak and Yigit, 1998). The presence of A. euphratica has been reported in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria (Abi-Said, 2004). It is probable that A. euphratica is present in southwestern Iran (KryŠtufek and Vohralik, 2005).