Scorpionism in Argentina

Four species in the medical important genus Tityus C. L. Koch, 1836 (Buthidae) can cause serious morbidity in humans in Argentina. Andres Ojanguren-Affilastro and co-workers have recently published an article on the distribution of medical important scorpions in Argentina. The article is in Spanish.

Abstract:
Four species of the scorpion genus Tityus can be potentially lethal for humans in Argentina. In the last decades we observed an expansion in the distribution of most of these species, and this expansion accelerated in the last twenty years. Tityus trivittatus and Tityus confluens occur now in most of the medium and large cities of central and northern Argentina. In this contribution we present an overview of this problem in Argentina, and we include several new records for these species. We provide the southernmost records for the genus in the cities of Mar del Plata and Bahia Blanca. Finally we focus in the problem of scorpionism in the area of Buenos Aires city, in which two new species are recorded for the first time, Tityus bahiensis and Tityus confluens, being the second one apparently definitively installed.

Reference:
Ojanguren Affilastro AA, Bizzotto C, Lanari LC, Remes-Lenicov M, de Roodt AR. Presencia de Tityus confluens Borelli en la ciudad de Buenos Aires y expansión de la distribución de las especies de importancia médica de Tityus (Scorpiones; Buthidae) en la Argentina. Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales 2019;21(1):101-12. [Subscription required for full text]

Thanks to Andres Ojanguren-Affilastro for sending me their article!