A New Species of the Terrestrial Earthworm of the Genus Metaphire Sims and Easton, 1972 from Thailand with Redescription of Some Species

Abstract

A project on an inventory of earthworm fauna in Nan province, north Thailand and nearby areas has been carried out since 2009, with a focus on the two common genera Amynthas Kinberg, 1867 and Metaphire Sims and Easton, 1972. In this paper we report on the occurrence of species of the genus Metaphire. The cosmopolitan species Metaphire peguana (Rosa, 1890) was found in all areas and nearby localities. For the following four widely-distributed species we provide morphological data: M. anomala (Michaelsen, 1907), M. birmanica (Rosa, 1888), M. houlleti (Perrier, 1872), M. posthuma (Vaillant, 1868). Morphological divergences from previous records of these common species are noted, but the available data do not support description of new taxa. One new species, Metaphire grandipenes n.sp. is so named because of the extreme expansion of ventral segment xviii and the male porophores protruded as large two penes or large two knobs. It has large genital markings and genital marking glands at xx. This new species is compared to M. abdita (Gates, 1935).