Eudrilidae Claus, 1880

Misirlioğlu, Mete, Reynolds, John Warren, Stojanović, Mirjana, Trakić, Tanja, Sekulić, Jovana, James, Samuel W., Csuzdi, Csaba, Decaëns, Thibaud, Lapied, Emmanuel, Phillips, Helen R. P., Cameron, Erin K. & Brown, George G., 2023, Earthworms (Clitellata, Megadrili) of the world: an updated checklist of valid species and families, with notes on their distribution, Zootaxa 5255 (1), pp. 417-438 : 423

Eudrilidae Claus, 1880

The Eudrilidae is a peculiar earthworm family with internal fertilisation ( Clausen 1965; Sims 1969). It consists of 45 genera and 305 species (plus 21 subspecies) distributed in tropical Africa from south of the Sahara to the Kalahari Desert and northern South Africa ( Sims 1987). There are only two species in the family regarded as widely introduced peregrines: Eudrilus eugeniae (Kinberg) and Hyperiodrilus africanus Beddard. The first species, commonly called the "African Nightcrawler" is widespread, found mainly in vermiculture outside its native range (West Africa) throughout the tropics and sub-tropics in Latin America, the Caribbean, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia ( Blakemore 2015). Rarely has this species been found inhabiting soils ( Blakemore 2015) and not compost beds, and its survival under these conditions probably requires high moisture and the presence of abundant litter, or organic resources, which are its major food source. The second species, H. africanus can also be found frequently in compost-beds and high organic content soils, but its distribution is more restricted, being known from Western ( Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Gabon) and Central Africa ( Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola) ( Tondoh & Lavelle 2005) and Brazil ( Righi 1972; Sousa et al. 2020).