The subterranean genus Niphargus is one of the most species-rich genera among freshwater amphipods in the world, distributed in the Western Palearctic

Biodiversity hotspots are centers of biological diversity and particularly threatened by anthropogenic activities. Their true magnitude of species diversity and endemism, however, is still largely unknown as species diversity is traditionally assessed using morphological descriptions only, thereby ignoring cryptic species. This directly limits evidence-based monitoring and management strategies. Here we used molecular species delimitation methods to quantify cryptic diversity of the montane amphipods in the Irano-Anatolian and Caucasus biodiversity hotspots. Amphipods are ecosystem engineers in rivers and lakes. Species diversity was assessed by analysing two genetic markers (mitochondrial COI and nuclear 28S rDNA), compared with morphological assignments. Our results unambiguously demonstrate that species diversity and endemism is dramatically underestimated, with 42 genetically identified freshwater species in only five reported morphospecies. Over 90% of the newly recovered species cluster inside Gammarus komareki and G. lacustris; 69% of the recovered species comprise narrow range endemics. Amphipod biodiversity is drastically underestimated for the studied regions. Thus, the risk of biodiversity loss is significantly greater than currently inferred as most endangered species remain unrecognized and/or are only found locally. Integrative application of genetic assessments in monitoring programs will help to understand the true magnitude of biodiversity and accurately evaluate its threat status.

The present annotated checklist contains 43 species of thoracican barnacles known to date from the area, 33 and 26 from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, respectively. Nine species are new records for the area including Amphibalunus subalbidus (Henry, 1973), Armatobalanus allium (Darwin, 1854), Chelonibia patula (Ranzani, 1818), Conchoderma hunteri (Owen, 1830), Lepas anserifera Linnaeus, 1767, Lithotrya valentiana Reinhardt, 1850, Megabalanus coccopoma (Darwin, 1854), Megabalanus occator (Darwin, 1854) and Platylepas hexastylos (Fabricius, 1798), of which A. subalbidus and M. coccopoma are reported as alien species from the region.

Two new species of the genus Niphargus Schiödte, 1849 are described and named (Niphargus alisadri sp. nov. and Niphargus daniali sp. nov.) from two caves in Iran. Their taxonomic status within the genus Niphargus is discussed in comparison to several known species from Iran (N. valachicus, N. khayyami and N. khwarizmi), Turkey (N. tauri), Israel (N. itus) and Iraq (N. nadarini). http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E401A157-90CB-4C66-9C0C-3FEE06E42A04

Four new species from the amphipod genus Niphargus are described, namely N. borisi sp. nov., N. bisitunicus sp. nov., N. darvishi sp. nov. and N. sharifi sp. nov. All four species of this predominantly subterranean genus were collected from springs in the Western region of Iran (Zagros region), which is the eastern borderline of the genus range. The species are morphologically diagnosed, described and illustrated. With these newly described species, the total number of Niphargus species in the Middle East reaches twenty-three. In order to facilitate the identification of Niphargus species in the region and to make future taxonomy of the genus easier, we have compiled a database in DEscription Language for TAxonomy (DELTA) using 23 diagnostic traits for these 23 species and subspecies identified in the Middle East. The database is available on the web as supplementary material whereas the dichotomous identification key automatically generated from the database for routine use is provided as a part of the paper.