A checklist of megadrile earthworm (Annelida: Clitellata) species and subspecies of the world

The available literature on earthworm (Megadrili) species distributions at the worldwide, regional, and country levels were reviewed and combined with personal databases of the authors, as well as the data available in Drilobase (www.drilobase.org), Integrated Taxonomic Information System - ITIS (www.itis.gov), the 2nd edition of Nomenclatura Oligochaetologica (https://nomenclatura-oligochaetologica.inhs.illinois.edu; Reynolds & Wetzel 2022), the Earthworm species database (Csuzdi 2012) and Blakemore (2008). These data were then used to produce a full list of species up to the end of December 2022.

The family classification chosen for the present paper is based on that of James and Davidson (2012) and James (2012), expanded by Anderson et al. (2017) and Erséus et al. (2020), mainly based on DNA analysis (multiple genes). Moniligastridae, although not Crassiclitellata were included as they are analogous to earthworms and part of the Megadrili. Syngenodrilidae and Alluroididae were excluded from the list as they have been tentatively placed into the Order Alluroidida, mainly due to the absence of genetic sequence data needed to make a more informed decision as to their placement (Schmelz et al. 2021).

The first version of this dataset was published together with a paper authored by Msirlioğlu et al. (2023), and included in a special issue of Zootaxa (volume 5255).

The updated list is recognizably not exhaustive and may still be missing some species that were not caught in the lead author’s searches. The current version (v8) corrects some authors, genera, and species names, excluding some synonyms, and adding 20 valid species/subspecies that were inadvertently omitted in previous versions. It provides the names of all valid species and subspecies (up to 31 December 2022) and includes 5,420 earthworm species and 333 unique subspecies (not counting the nomino-typical subspecies), for a total of 5,753 species/subspecies worldwide, belonging to 382 genera. These are divided into 23 families, of which Megascolecidae is the most speciose (2,343 sp./spp.), followed by Acanthodrilidae (797 sp./spp.), and Lumbricidae (688 sp./spp.). On the other hand, 10 families are monospecific and/or monogeneric, with a limited number of species and geographic distribution.

The current list is provided as an Excel file and includes a Readme tab as well as five spreadsheets:

Metadata: Provides information on the remaining spreadsheets in the file

Families: List of the valid 23 Megadrili earthworm families and authors, and their parent taxa (Sub-order, Order and higher-level taxonomic classifications) 

Genera: List of the 382 valid megadrile earthworm genera and authors, and their parent families

Sub-genera: List of the 34 valid megadrile earthworm subgenera and authors

Species: List of the 5,753 valid megadrile earthworm species and subspecies and authors, presented alphabetically by family and genus

If any mistakes are found in the present file (version 8), we kindly request that you contact the first author (George Brown) by e-mail at george.brown@embrapa.br or minhocassu@gmail.com, so that the appropriate corrections can be made. Please consider only literature published up to December 2022 for corrections.