International Journal of Aquatic Science ISSN: 2008-8019 Vol 1, No 1, 2010 () morteza_djamali@yahoo.com -Short Communication- A 200,000-year record of the brine shrimp Artemia (Crustacea: Anostraca) remains in Lake Urmia, NW Iran Morteza Djamali 1 *, Philippe Ponel 1 , Thomas Delille 1 , Alain Thiéry 2 , Alireza Asem 3 , Valérie Andrieu- Ponel 1 , Jacques-Louis de Beaulieu 1 , Hamid Lahijani 4 , Majid Shah-Hosseini 4,5 , Abdolhossein Amini 6 , Lora Stevens 7 1) Institut Méditerranéen d'Ecologie et de Paléoécologie UMR CNRS 6116 - Europôle Méditerranéen de I'Arbois - Pavillon Villemin - BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France 2) Institut Méditerranéen d'Ecologie et de Paléoécologie UMR CNRS 6116 – Université Aix-Marseille I, 3 place Victor Hugo,13331 Marseille Cedex 3, France 3) Protectors of Urmia Lake National Park Society (NGO), Urmia, Iran 4)Iranian National Center for Oceanography (INCO), No.9 Etemad Zadeh St., West Fatemi Ave, 14155-4781 Tehran, Iran 5) Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de lʼEnvironnement UMR CNRS 6635 Europôle Méditerranéen de l'Arbois – BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France 6) School of Geology, College of Science, University of Tehran, 14155-6455 Tehran, Iran 7) Department of Geological Sciences, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840-3902, USA 1. Introduction Carbonate fecal pellets and organic cysts of AƕƗƈƐƌƄ species constitute an important biogenic component of the sedimentary records in many saline and hypersaline lakes of the world. In some lakes they are the major contributor of biogenic carbonate sedimentation (e.g. Kelts & Shahrabi, 1986). However, little attention has so far been paid to their potential use in palaeoecology and palaeobiology. The geological record of AƕƗƈƐƌƄ remains extends back hundreds of thousands years in Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA (Eardley & Gvosdetsky, 1960). In Great Salt Lake, well- preserved AƕƗƈƐƌƄ cysts have been recovered from sediment cores as old as 27,000 years ago (last glacial maximum) (Clegg & Jackson, 1997). The later authors demonstrate that the chitinous shell surrounding the AƕƗƈƐƌƄ cysts would protects their DNA content from destructive environmental factors, including long periods of anoxic conditions, severe desiccation, temperature extremes and bacterial attack. They propose that the AƕƗƈƐƌƄ cysts present a unique opportunity for the scientific community to study the ancient DNA. 2. Artemia fecal pellets and cysts in Lake Urmia Lake Urmia is the largest natural habitat of AƕƗƈƐƌƄ ƘƕƐƌƄƑƄ Günther, 1899 which is characterized by specific biometrical, morpho- metrical and genetic characteristics which distinguishes it from several other species of AƕƗƈƐƌƄ (Asem ƈƗ ƄƏ., 2007). The oldest historical document that mentions the presence of AƕƗƈƐƌƄ dates to the Middle Ages more than 1,000 years