First report of the brine shrimp Artemia (Branchiopoda: Anostraca) from Bazangan Lake, Iran

Artemia has been recorded in thalassohaline and athalassohaline saline habitats from all over the world (Persoone & Sorgeloos, 1980) and is widely used in aquaculture as a food source for crustaceans and fish (Leger et al., 1986). The occurrence of wild Artemia populations from 17 hypersaline environments such as saline lakes, lagoons and salty rivers, distributed over 12 provinces in Iran were previously reported (Abatzopoulos et al., 2006) We added parthenogenetic Artemia from Bazangan lake as 18th natural habitat in the country (Fig. 1). All Iranian Artemia populations are parthenogenetic except one bisexual population namely Artemia urmiana from Urmia Lake (Agh,2006).