Unraveling some Kinki worms (Annelida, Oligochaeta, Megadrili, Lumbricidae) – Part III

Abstract

Eisenia anzac sp. nov., unearthed near the Commonwealth War Graves in Yokohama, raises the current Japanese Lumbricidae to 15 (sub-)species. Representing just 11% of Japans´s named earthworm fauna, most lumbricids are cosmopolitan exotics and only one – Helodrilus hachiojii Blakemore, 2007 is thought wholly endemic to Japan. Eisenia japonica (Michaelsen, 1892) although native to the Far East has been questionably reported from Germany/Europe. Review is based on types and more recent specimens from rice paddy survey around Lake Biwa in the Kinki region plus ancillary collecting around Tokyo Both prior taxa are comparable (morphologically and via mtDNA COI barcode) to a potentially endemic species newly described herein.

Keywords

• lumbricid earthworms
• Japan
• types
• taxonomy
• rice paddy