Bulletin of the Iraq Natural History Museum

During a period of two years, from January 1995 till December 1996, the first survey on
fish parasites in Bahr Al-Najaf depression, mid Iraq, was achieved. A total of 6992 fishes,
belonging to 11 species, were collected and inspected for external and internal parasites.
These fishes were infected with three protozoans (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, Trichodina
domerguei and Myxobolus pfeifferi), two monogeneans (Dactylogyrus cornu and
Gyrodactylus elegans), two digenetic trematodes (Clinostomum complanatum and Ascocotyle
coleostoma), one nematode (Contracaecum sp.) and one acanthocephalan
(Neoechinorhynchus iraqensis). Five fish species were recorded as new hosts in Iraq for four
helminth species of the present study.

2005. Three of these are reported here for the first time Abgrallaspis cyanophylli (Signoret,
1869), Aonidiella citrina (Craw,1870) and Chrysomphalus aonidium (Linnaeus,1758).
The other thirteen species were recorded earlier Aonidiella aurantii(Maskell), Aonidiella
orientalis(Newstead), Chrysomphalus dictyospermi(Morgan), Diaspidiotus ostreaeformis
(Curtis), Diaspidiotu perniciosus(Comctock), Hemiberlesia lataniae (Signoret),
Lepidosaphes beckii(Newman), Lepidosaphes conchiformis(Gmelin), Lepidosaphes
ulmi(Linnaeus), Mercetaspis halli(Green), Parlatoria blanchardi(Targioni-Tozzetti) ,
Parlatoria crypta Mckenzie, Parlatoria pergandii Comstock.
Localities, date of collection and host plants were given for all species.

Four new species of Thrips (Thripidae) Chirothrips imperatus sp. nov. ; Frankliniella
megacephala sp. nov. ;Retithrips bagdadensis sp. nov; Taeniothrips tigridis sp. Nov. ; from
middle of Iraq, are described and illustrated with their hosts.

Shiranish formation has been divided into two microfacies units:
1-Marly biowacke stone facies
2-Biogenic pack stone facies
These microfacies reflected marine deep shelf margin in the upper part of the formation,
the lower part was deeper.
238 slides were investigated depending on Mineralogical, compositional and Biological
processes, which reflect deep shelf margin at upper part of the formation, but at the lower part
open sea environment.
The age of the formation is estimated depending on the recognized biostratigraphic zone
using the index fossils to be Upper- Middle Maestrichtian.

Chukar partridge Alectoris chukar (Gray, 1830) is the only species of the 46 species of the
genus Alectoris to be found in Iraq. At least there are fourteen subspecies of chukar were
described from east Europe, the Middle East and west Asia, two of them were known to be
found in Iraq, A.c. Kurdestanica (Meinertzhagen, 1923) from Alpine bio-geographical zone of
altitude more than 2000m high, and A.c. werae Zarundny and Loudon, 1904, from the
foothills of altitude not more than 400m. In between these two regions, there is another biogeographical
region known as the Irano-toranian zone 400-2000m high. Using morphological,
ecological, behavioural, reproduction and hybridization criteria this study discovered a new
subspecies A. c. asoica ssp. n. in Irano-toranian zone. The new subspecies differs from A.c.
Kurdestanica and A.c. werae in voice , migration, chick coloration, egg size and certain
aspects of ecology. Also this study recorded for the first time the subspecies A.c. sinaica
Bonaparte 1858, in the area between Jezira and western desert, the penetration of the
Jordanian Irano-toranian zone. The taxonomic status of the new subspecies A. c. asoica ssp.n.
has been discussed according to the most common and widely accepted species concept,
biological species concept (BSC) and phylogenetic species concept (PSC).

A total of 28 birds were examined to investigate about the distribution of the nematode
Hadjelia truncata among some members of the avian family Columbidae in Al-Diwaniya
Province, Central Iraq. The percentages of the infection rate with this nematode were 27.27,
37.5, 14.28 and 0 in Columba livia, C. palumbis, Streptopelia decaocto, and S. turtur
respectively. Reporting Hadjelia truncata from Streptopelia decaocto constitutes a new host
record.