A New Quadrannulate Species of Orobdella (Hirudinida: Arhynchobdellida: Orobdellidae) from Pingtung, Taiwan

Takafumi Nakano; Yi-Te Lai

doi:10.12782/specdiv.22.143

Abstract

A quadrannulate leech species, Orobdella meisai sp. nov., from southern Taiwan is described. This new species is characterized by its camouflage coloration, which is unique among the known Orobdella species. Orobdella meisai is the second species of the genus to be described from Taiwan. Phylogenetic analyses using nuclear 18S rRNA, histone H3, mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, tRNA^Cys, tRNA^Met, 12S rRNA, tRNA^Val, 16S rRNA, tRNA^Leu and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 markers showed that O. meisai and another Taiwanese species, O. ketagalan Nakano and Lai, 2012, formed a supported clade. According to the results of the morphological examination and the phylogenetic position of O. meisai, morphological-phylogenetic relationships of this species and close congeners are briefly discussed.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12782/specdiv.22.143

Received 17 8月 2017 Accepted 12 10月 2017

Acknowledgments:

The authors are grateful to Mr Fu-Sheng Huang, Mr Wei-Ren Liang and Mr Kao-Shr Shiang for providing specimens of the new species. We are also grateful to Dr Ko Tomikawa (Hiroshima University) for his generous assistance with our filed survey in 2017, and to two anonymous reviewers and Dr Nozomu Muto (Tokai University) for their constructive comments on this manuscript. This study was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant numbers JP26840127 and JP15J00720.

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