Taxonomic status and intraspecific phylogeography of two sibling species of Metaphire (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) in Taiwan

In this study the synonymy of Amynthas formosae (Michaelsen, 1922) and A. yuhsii (Tsai, 1964) are reevaluated and the intraspecific phylogeography between them is studied. The morphological comparison and phylogenetic analysis based on cytochrome c oxidase subunit I suggest that A. formosae and A. yuhsii are not synonyms and both of them belong to Metaphire. The phylogeographic analysis suggests that the formation of mountains and rivers during the uplift of the Western Foothills in Taiwan comprised the vicariance events responsible for the intraspecific genetic differentiation between these two species.