Description of seven new species of Libyodrilus Beddard from Cameroon, with a key to the species of the genus (Oligochaeta: Eudrilidae)

Abstract

Seven new species of Libyodrilus Beddard, 1891 are described from Cameroon: L. choristoporus, L. bipindiensis, L. maryae, L. edeaensis, L. platybrachyoncus, L. crassisetus and L. tenuisetus. New records of L. simsi Clausen, 1965 are given from Togo, and Libyodrilus sp. of Sims, 1965 is referred to L. simsi despite what appear to be some errors in the description given by Sims. Scolecillus compositus Omodeo, 1958, provisionally referred to Libyodrilus by Sims, 1965, differs from Libyodrilus in characters of importance and should not be moved. The distribution of Libyodrilus is summarized, and an emended generic diagnosis and a key to all described species of the genus are given.

Keywords:

• Oligochaeta
• Eudrilidae
• Libyodrilus emended
• Scolecillus
• new species
• new records
• Togo
• Cameroon
• West Africa

Acknowledgements

I thank Søren Langemark, photographer Geert Brovad, illustrator Birgitte Rubæk, Martin Vinther Sørensen and Knud Rosenlund, all ZMUC, for help with various aspects of the photographs, labelling final versions of the drawings, and the map. Jonna Hatting is thanked for good co-operation in making the camera lucida drawings of external and internal structures. Sten Ebbesen kindly helped with translation of names of new species into Latin. I am especially grateful to my colleague Mary E. Petersen for critically reading and discussing various aspects of the manuscript and to my son Henning J. S. Clausen for additional helpful feedback. Hilke Ruhberg and Peter Siewe, Zoologisches Museum, Universität Hamburg, Germany, kindly arranged loans of material for descriptions of Libyodrilus bipindiensis and L. choristoporus.