Tubificid worms (Oligochaetes: Naididae) in the sediments of the Euphrates River, Iraq

Ilham Obaed; Haifa J. Jaweir

doi:10.22034/ijab.v13i5.2395

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Ilham Obaed
elhamlolo677@gmail.com
Department of Biology, College of Science for Women, University of Baghdad, Iraq.
Haifa J. Jaweir Department of Biology, College of Science for Women, University of Baghdad, Iraq.

Vol. 13 No. 5 (2025): October

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October 25, 2025

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A total of 1557 tubificid worms were collected from the sediments of six sites on the middle sector of the Euphrates River and its branches. The collected species were identified according to their morphological characteristics as Branchuria sowerbyi Beddard, 1892? Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri Claparède, 1862? L. hoffmeisteri complex IX, L. claparedianus Ratzel, 1868? L. cervix Brinkhurst, 1963? Tubifex tubifex (Müller, 1774)? Ilyodrilus templetoni (Southern, 1909) and T. blanchardi Vejdovský, 1891. Ilyodrilus templetoni and T. blanchardi were new records for the Iraqi fauna, and their identification was confirmed by molecular analysis using the 18S rRNA gene. Their sequences were deposited in GenBank under accession numbers PQ275504 and PQ275628, respectively.

Obaed, I., & Jaweir, H. J. (2025). Tubificid worms (Oligochaetes: Naididae) in the sediments of the Euphrates River, Iraq. International Journal of Aquatic Biology, 13(5), 87–93. https://doi.org/10.22034/ijab.v13i5.2395

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