An annotated checklist of the Romanian earthworm fauna

Abstract

This paper updates POP’s (1938–1964) checklists of Romanian Lumbricidae with the taxa newly described, relocated or modified since then. It comprises a comparative outlook which briefly reflects also the history of the lumbricid systematics during the last seven decades. The checklist is based on a thoroughly re-examined material kept in the Zoological Museum of the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, and in the Biological Research Institute in Cluj-Napoca. A comparative table shows the taxa accepted by Pop, an up-dated list of the recently described species, and some dubious specie either relocated or eliminated. The earthworm fauna of Romania is quite well known; in the last 45 years, the list was augmented to 71 taxa. As compared with the fauna of the surrounding countries, the lumbricid earthworm fauna of Romania is very rich in number of species and especially in number of endemic elements. The 71 earthworm species found in Romania can be assigned to 12 zoogeographic categories dominated by the Dacian (29%) and Carpathian (14%) endemics.

Key words:

• Earthworms
• Lumbricidae
• Romania
• checklist