western and eastern populations of goitered gazelles are separated by zagors mountains as a barrier. bordering iraq, western population has suffered from drastic decline during and after iran-iraq war. presently, there are small numbers of the goitered gazelles left in the region with no clear understanding of their taxonomic status. it has been normally assumed that there should be a differenc...

Iran and blogging. Most of us, when encountering the relationship between the two, would probably think about conservatism and the extent of repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arrests of some prominent Iranian bloggers, such as Hussein Derakshan, popularised through the Western media would also spring to mind. But not many of us would know that Persian is one of the most used languages...

BACKGROUND One of the natural phenomena which have had considerable impacts on various regions of the world, including Iran, is "dust storm". In recent years, this phenomenon has taken on new dimensions in Iran and has changed from a local problem to a national issue. This study is an attempt to investigate the formation of the dust storms crossing the Western Iran. METHODOLOGY To find the so...

Western Iran is an important dust source region in Middle East, with strong activities occurring springtime. Based on a three-hourly meteorological station data, remarkable decadal change of frequency the spring season has been found west and southwest Iran, less during 1992–2005 (hereafter as “P1”) more frequent 2006–2015 “P2”). The signal closely associated corresponding difference precipitat...

For the first time in more than 100 years, a new western Palaearctic species of Heloridae is described. Specimens of Helorus alborzicus Izadizadeh, van Achterberg & Talebi sp. nov. and Helorus ruficornis Förster were collected from the Alborz province of Iran. An illustrated identification key for Western Palaearctic Heloridae is provided.