Three new enchytraeid species from Korean soils: Description of Fridericia granulocytoides sp. nov., Mesenchytraeus jeombongensis sp. nov. and Mesenchytraeus racemosus sp. nov. (Enchytraeidae, Clitellata)

Abstract The terrestrial enchytraeid fauna of South Korea has been intensively studied in recent years, as a consequence of which, several species new to science have been described. In this paper, we describe further three new enchytraeid species from Korean soils, one Fridericia ( Fridericia granulocytoides sp. nov.) species and two species from the genus Mesenchytraeus ( Mesenchytraeus jeombongensis sp. nov. and Mesenchytraeus racemosus sp. nov.). The validity of these new species was verified via comparative morphological observations and molecular taxonomic analyses based on sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer region and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 and histone 3 genes.