Three new species of Scorpiops from Tibet, China

 

Tibet is the highest region on Earth, but has a high scorpion diversity that is still not fully investigated. Victoria Tang and co-workers have recently published a study of Scorpiops Peters, 1861 (Scorpiopidae) from Tibet, and have described three new species.

Scorpiops deshpandei Tang, Ouyang, Liu & Stahlawsky, 2024

Scorpiops kovariki Tang, Ouyang, Liu & Stahlawsky, 2024

Scorpiops matthewi Tang, Ouyang, Liu & Stahlawsky, 2024

The authors introduce a new morphological term, "ocular islet" in this article.

One thing I think is very positive with this article is that the authors have a critical discussion about the practice of describing species and when a species should be given species status. They are very transparent about their discussion of the validity of their own new species.

Abstract:
Three new species of genus Scorpiops Peters, 1861 are described from Tibet Autonomous Region, China. S. deshpandei sp. n. is described based on an adult male and an immature pair collected from Mêdog County, Nyingchi, with additional molecular evidence substantiating its validity against S. longimanus Pocock, 1893. S. kovariki sp. n. is featured by a single adult female from Zayü. This species is only weakly supported by its genetic distance from S. jendeki Kovařík, 1994, but empirical understanding of the morphological variation in Scorpiops species motivated us to consider them as distinct. S. matthewi sp. n. is based on three adult females, all collected from Xigazê. Its species delineation is based solely on morphological characteristics due to the lack of material of its morphological relative (S. rufus Lv & Di, 2023). New specimens of S. margerisonae Kovařík, 2000 are obtained from Nyêmo, Lhasa, and compared with S. wrzecionkoi Kovařík, 2020. A new term, “ocular islet”, is introduced to portray the periocular morphology of Scorpiops median ocelli, categorized into four preliminary types. Finally, a comparative matrix summarizing the quantitative and qualitative diagnostic characters of Tibetan Scorpiops species based on preceding publications is provided.

Reference:
Tang V, Ouyang K, Liu Z, Stahlavsky F. Three new species of genus Scorpiops Peters, 1861 from Tibet, China (Scorpiones: Scorpiopidae), with implications for the diagnostic values of qualitative characters. Euscorpius. 2024(394):1-40. [Open Access]

Thanks to Victoria for informing me about their article!

Family Scorpiopidae