A new species of the genus Hydropsyche Pictet, 1834 (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) from Kurdistan Province, Iran

Abstract

The caddisfly fauna of the Kurdistan Province in Iran is poorly known, with only a few reported species until now. In this paper, we describe a new species, Hydropsyche kurdistanica Ibrahimi and Mohammadi sp. n., from the Zagros Mountains in Kurdistan. Males of the new species are most similar to those of H. delamarei (Jacquemart, 1965) and H. lundaki Chvojka, 2006, but differ mainly in exhibiting a combination of the following characteristics: (1) dorsal keel of segment IX moderately wide with tapering apex in dorsal view, (2) digitiform appendages moderately long, almost equally wide, with rounded apex, and directed downwards in lateral view, (3) apical part of phallus short and broad, with short, somehow triangularly rounded lateral projections, (4) phallus strongly curved after basal third in lateral view, ventroapically rounded, (5) habitus and wings dark brown to blackish. Hydropsyche kurdistanica Ibrahimi and Mohammadi sp. n. is the twenty-fourth species of the genus Hydropsyche Pictet, 1834 known from Iran and the second one from Kurdistan Province.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:992D271C-3327-4706-8625-7662CA4E2EF4

Keywords:

• Zagros
• caddisfly diversity
• species description
• Hydropsyche instabilis species cluster

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Ferdinand C. de Moore and another anonymous reviewer, as well as the Editor-in-Chief Dr Helena V. Shaverdo, for their valuable comments that improved greatly the initial version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).