Completion of molecular taxonomy: description of four amphipod species (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Niphargidae) from Iran and release of database for morphological taxonomy

Niphargus is one of the major freshwater amphipod genera in the world, distributed in groundwater in the Western Palearctic. Iran presents the eastern-most boundary of its range. Recent surveys using molecular markers unveiled that many populations from Western Iran deserve species status. In this study, we morphologically analyzed, described and illustrated four new species: N. persicus sp. nov., N. hosseiniei sp. nov., N. ilamensis sp. nov. and N. sohrevardensis sp. nov. All species were found in the west and north-west of Iran in Elburz and Zagros Mountain ranges. Therefore, the number of Niphargus species from Iran has been raised to 15, and we expect more species will be discovered in the future. In order to facilitate and further stimulate the taxonomy of the genus in the region, we constructed a database in the taxonomic program DELTA. The database describes 31 the most important morphological characters for 29 Asian Niphargus species, and is freely distributed via the World Amphipoda Database. In order to stimulate research on groundwater amphipods in the Middle East, we present how further taxonomy can benefit from this web-available data on morphology.