Artemia has been recorded in thalassohaline and athalassohaline saline habitats from all over the world (Persoone & Sorgeloos, 1980) and is widely used in aquaculture as a food source for crustaceans and fish (Leger et al., 1986). The occurrence of wild Artemia populations from 17 hypersaline environments such as saline lakes, lagoons and salty rivers, distributed over 12 provinces in Iran were previously reported (Abatzopoulos et al., 2006) We added parthenogenetic Artemia from Bazangan lake as 18th natural habitat in the country (Fig. 1). All Iranian Artemia populations are parthenogenetic except one bisexual population namely Artemia urmiana from Urmia Lake (Agh, 2006). The historical record of existence of Artemia dates back to 982, more than one thousand years ago, from Urmia Lake, by an unknown Iranian geographer (Asem, 2008).The parthenogenesis populations have been reported from Lagoons around Urmia Lake, Urmia and Fesendooz, West Azerbaijan province; Lagoons around Urmia Lake Dasht-E-Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province; Maharlu Lake Shiraz, Bakhtegan Lake Shiraz and Tashk Lake Shiraz, Fars province; Incheh Lake Gonbad and Shor Lake Gonbad, Golestan province; Varmal catchment Zabul, Sistan and Baluchestan province; Mighan Lake Arak, Central province; Qom Salt Lake Qom and Houze Sultan Lake Qom, Qom province; Gaav Khooni Lake Hasan Abad, Isfahan province; Kale Shoor Gonabad, Razavi Khorasan province; Kale Shoor Khorram Abad, Lorestan province; Nough Kerman, Kerman province; Shurabil Lake (extinct) Ardabil, Ardabil province; Kale Shoor Hashtgerd Karaj, Alborz province (Agh, 2006; Abatzopoulos et al., 2006).

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