Amynthas cf. chiakensis Hong & James, 2013: 76

Blakemore, Robert J., Lee, Seunghan & Seo, Hong-Yul, 2015, Account of montane and insular speciation in some Korean megadriles (Annelida: Oligochaeta), Journal of Species Research 4 (1), pp. 1-22 : 7

8. Amynthas cf. chiakensis Hong & James, 2013: 76 ,

fig. 1A, B ( Fig. 4A ).

Material. IV 0000261301 (DNA sample HY5) a sub-adult from Bangtaesan Mt. (37̊55′25.30′′N 128̊25′48.42′′E), Inje, Gangwon-do, eastern South Korea, collected by Dr H.-Y. Seo, 11 th July, 2013. Found with a mature Metaphire hilgendorfi (Michaelsen, 1892) (IV0000261302), and one other specimen (IV000261300) described separately below.

Description. Length 70-82, current 60 mm. Brown. Perichaetine. Spermathecae in 6/7/8, no genital markings nearby. Male pores superficial surrounded fore and aft by two to four papillae (three in current specimen) per side within elongate, lateral disc. Caeca manicate in 27. GM glands internally ( Hong & James, 2013: 76 note GM glands are lacking around the spermathecal pores, but this is unsurprising when there are no GMs).

Remarks. This specimen lacking anterior GMs is superficially complicit with Amynthas chiakensis (from Mt Chiak) defined by these authors as related to A. sanchongensis Hong & James, 2001: 90 fig. 5P-T (from Mt Jiri) that has clusters of small genital markings anterior and posterior to each spermathcal pore. It was said also similar only to A. sonjaesiki Hong & James, 2009 (from Mt Songni) that differs in having small GMs close to the spermathecal pores in 7 and 8.

However, Blakemore (2003: 43, 2006; 2008; 2012f; 2014) suggested that A. sanchongensis is a synonym of A. tappensis (Ohfuchi, 1935) along with several other Japanese and Korean species that are overlooked by Hong & James (2001; 2009; 2013). Moreover, A. sonjaesiki Hong & James, 2009 is similarly thought a junior synonym of prior A. tokioensis (Beddard, 1892) with yet other species taking priority as per Blakemore (2003 b: 43, 2006; 2008; 2010; 2012f). These issues are entirely avoided by Hong & James (2013: 76) who merely say “ Resolving the taxonomic issues associated with extensive parthenogenetic modification of sexual characters is a difficult problem in this group of earthworms, among others (cf. Blakemore 2006), and will require extensive resampling for molecular data. ” They yet fail to resample nor provide any molecular data to support their work, whereas in the current study COI barcodes (e.g., sample HY 5 in Appendix, Fig. 1 ) are provided for support and comparison whenever possible.

Interestingly, the nearest BLAST match on HY5 is 621/623 (99%) with “ Metaphire soulensis ” (accessions AB5426642-7 from Japan: Aomori-ken, Kanagawa-ken, Sendai City in Miyagi-ken, Hachioji near Tokyo, Kobe City and Hiroishima) and 577/579 (99%) with>JET-168 Amynthas soulensis from Japan (Appendix) also 622/623 (99%) with DNA sample>w47 of Metaphire soulensis from Ullungdo as described by Blakemore (2013: 62, fig. 7). Current synonyms of Metaphire soulensis ( Kobayashi, 1938) are Pheretima shinkeiensis Kobayashi, 1938 ; Pheretima aokii Ishizuka, 1999 - as per Blakemore (2003 b: 43; 2012b) - plus A. dageletensis Hong & Kim, 2005 as per Blakemore (2006; 2008; 2010; 2012b; 2013; 2014).

The question now of whether A. chiakensis Hong & James, 2013 also belongs in synonymy of parthenogenetic M. soulensis (Kobashi, 1938) is left to its authors to determine.

Figures

Fig. 4. 4A. Amynthas cf. chiakensis Hong & James, 2013. Boxed sketch of male pore region (spermathecae and anterior GMs lacking). 4B. Amynthas tokioensis oculo sub-sp. nov. Holotype with enlargement of spermathecal pore 7/8 rhs(male pores and posterior GMs lacking).

Fig. 1. MEGA6 Neighbour-Joining phylogram of DNA barcode results for evolutionary analyses using program defaults [see Tamura K., Stecher G., Peterson D., Filipski A., and Kumar S. (2013). MEGA6: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 6.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution 30: 2725-2729].