Two new species of Niphargus (Crustacea: Amphipoda) from Iran.

TwoNiphargusspecies,Niphargus khayyamisp. nov. andNiphargus khwarizmisp. nov., are morphologically analysed and described. Both species are found in western Iran, which represents the easternmost border of the distributional area for this subterranean amphipod genus. We were unable to attributeN. khayyamisp. nov. to any of 80Niphargusspecies that were analysed for 28S ribosomal DNA sequences; sequencing ofN. khwarizmisp. nov. failed. Niphargid findings from west Asia recorded in 5 years imply that almost one half of the range of this large freshwater amphipod genus is still unexplored.http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:9E9E7CC9-83E2-419F-A394-57197305E1EF [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]