Sperchon beneckei Bader & Sepasgosarian, 1982

Material examined.

Isparta • TR 18-2024, Yazılıkanyon Tabiat Parkı, stream from cave (moss), 37.46882°N, 30.919449°E, 25 Apr. 2024, leg. Pešić, Zawal, Gülle & Gülle, 1 ♀ (sequenced) .

Remarks.

The sequence obtained from one specimen from Isparta fell into BIN BOLD: AED 2730, which besides the specimen from this study, includes one specimen from Iran morphologically assigned to S. beneckei . The latter species was originally described from Iran. Asadi et al. (2010) synonymized the species with S. algeriensis Lundblad, 1942, a species described from northern Africa (Lundblad 1942) and subsequently recorded from many sites in the central and western Mediterranean area (Di Sabatino et al. 2010). Recently, Pešić et al. (2024) emphasized that high genetic distance of 15.4 % between Iberian populations of S. algeriensis and the specimen from Iran, suggests that S. beneckei is a distinct species and its synonymization with S. algeriensis should be rejected. The new findings of S. beneckei from southeastern Türkiye show that this species is widespread, and therefore, the known populations of S. algeriensis from Türkiye (e. g., Esen et al. 2013 b) should be checked using molecular methods to see if they can be assigned to S. beneckei .

Distribution.

Iran, Türkiye.