The halophilic fairy shrimp, Phallocryptus spinosa (Milne-Edwards, 1840) (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Anostraca) from southeast, Iran

Phallocryptus spinosa (Milne-Edwards, 1840) was previously recorded in Iran from a shallow salty pond close to Tabriz, occurring sympatrically with Branchinecta orientalis Sars, 1901; Second and third locations were reported from similar habitats in central area and south of Iran from Bafq and Lar, respectively. Here, a forth population was found during sampling in a pool, about 2000 Km to the south of the first recorded locality. A global distribution map for P. spinosa is presented. The common Lake Urmia branchiopod, Artemia urmiana GÜnther, 1899 was the first described anostracan species from Iran. Later, Brehm (1954) recorded some fairy shrimp species namely Streptocephalus torvicornis Waga, 1842 (Brtek, 1974) and Branchipus schaefferi Fischer, 1834 under B. stagnalis (Belk and Brtek, 1995). Mura and Azari-Takami (2000) reported another three species namely Chirocephalus skorikowi Daday, 1913, Branchinecta orientalis Sars, 1901 and P. spinosa under Branchinella spinosa (Milne-Edwards, 1840); in recent years, Atashbar et al., (2009) also reported P. spinosa from Bafq and Lar. The unpublished data by Agh and Noori (1997), added parthenogenetic Artemia sp. from lagoons around the Lake Urmia to the anostracan fauna of Iran; it was also found in the other localities later on and finally, an exotic species Artemia franciscana was introduced artificially to some localities in Iran (Abatzopoulus et al., 2006).