Three new species and four new species records of earthworms of the genus Moniligaster Perrier, 1872 (Clitellata: Moniligastridae) from Kerala region of the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, India

Abstract

Three new species of Moniligaster Perrier, 1872, namely M. bahli Narayanan & Julka, sp. nov., M. blakemorei Narayanan & Julka, sp. nov. and M. keralensis Narayanan & Julka, sp. nov. are described from materials collected from the Indian state of Kerala. Moniligaster cernosvitovi Gates, 1962, Moniligaster horsti Gates, 1940, Moniligaster michaelseni Gates, 1940 and Moniligaster stephensoni Gates, 1940 are recorded for the first time from the state. With the new findings, a total of 10 Moniligaster species are known from Kerala. Moniligaster species are restricted to southern peninsular India, except Moniligaster ivaniosi Manazhy, 2011, decribed from the Andaman Islands, outside the currently known distributional range of the genus. Hence we critically reviewed the original description and reinvestigated the holotype. As a result, Moniligaster ivaniosi is considered a junior synonym of Drawida nepalensis Michaelsen, 1907.

A comprehensive checklist of the earthworms (Annelida: Clitellata: Megadrili) of Sri Lanka, a component of the Western Ghats – Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot

“…As in the case of many other taxa, earthworms of Sri Lanka and Western Ghats of India show an exceptionally high level of endemism (71.6% and about 77% (Narayanan et al 2020(Narayanan et al , 2021) respectively), which may be due to the fact that these two areas of the Indian plate, which were the part of the ancient super continent Gondwanaland, had never been fully submerged under the sea in the various geological time periods (Illangasinghe et al 1999;Julka and Paliwal 2005). Of the estimated 9 genera with endemic taxa in Sri Lanka, Megascolex is dominant with species and subspecies followed by Notoscolex (14 species), Drawida (2), Argilophilus (2), Glyphidrilus, Pontodrilus and Perionyx with one species each.…”