New pictures in The Scorpion Files gallery

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to take many scorpion pictures myself, but fortunately I regularly get sent pictures from scorpion enthusiasts to be used in The Scorpion Files Gallery. Recently, I have added more than 40 high quality pictures that have been donated to The Scorpion Files by Japanese scorpion enthusiast Kawai Kazusa. You can find the pictures by searching for his name in the gallery. A big thanks to Kawai for sharing his pictures with us!

Please note that the species identifications in The Scorpion Files Gallery may not be correct for all pictures. Picture identification is very difficult, and sometimes a 100% identification is not possible. The taxonomy of all taxa in the gallery may also not be updated. This is a work in progress, but given less priority than the species files.

Jan Ove Rein
Editor

The scorpion Files Gallery

New information on the super-rare scorpion Pectinibuthus birulai from Turkmenistan

Victor Fet and co-workers recently published an article on the very rare and enigmatic, psammophile scorpion Pectinibuthus birulai Fet, 1984 (Buthidae) from Turkmenistan. The original types of this species are probably lost and today the species is known from just one specimen. This specimen is designated as neotype.

The specimen is described and detailed pictures are provided. P. birulai is a psammohile scorpion and some aspects of the morphology of psammophile scorpions are discussed. The biogeography of this species is also discussed.

Abstract:
A neotype is designated for a very rare Central Asian scorpion, Pectinibuthus birulai Fet, 1984, the sole species of the genus Pectinibuthus Fet, 1984. It is the only currently known specimen, collected by Victor Fet in July 1985, and deposited in ZISP (St. Petersburg, Russia). The original types are considered lost. Detailed photographs of the neotype are provided, as well as comments on this unique psammophile buthid. We also discuss and compare pectinal tooth counts of psammophile scorpions relative to other scorpions.

Reference:
Fet V, Kovarik F, Lowe G. Neotype designation for Pectinibuthus birulai Fet, 1984 (Scorpiones: Buthidae) from Turkmenistan, with remarks on pectine teeth of psammophile scorpions. Euscorpius. 2019(286):1-14. [Open Access]

Family Buthidae

An updated edition of Conspectus Genericus Scorpionorum

Oscar Francke has published a new edition of Conspectus Genericus Scorpionorum, which is a list of all genus and subgenus names introduced for all recent and fossil scorpions from 1758–2018. This work is based on previous edition made by Francke (1985) and Dupré (2007).

I refer to the abstract and the paper for further details! NB! Please note that The Scorpion Files' list of valid genera has not yet been compared to the Conspectus Genericus Scorpionorum and updated. This will take some time and will be done in the weeks to come.

Abstract:
Genus and subgenus names introduced for all Recent and fossil scorpions from 1758–2018, are listed. The treatment follows the Conspectus of Francke (1985) and Dupré (2007) with considerable additional information accumulated during intensive scorpiological research of 2006–2018. The list also includes all available generic and subgeneric synonyms, incorrect spellings and unavailable emendations. For Recent taxa the new totals are 19 families compared to only nine in the first Conspectus, 220 genera with an increase of almost 100 from the first version, and 23 subgenera; for fossil taxa there are 43 families and 80 genera, 12 of which are incertae sedis. The type species of all accepted genus-group names are given.

Reference:
Francke OF. Conspectus Genericus Scorpionorum 1758–1985 (Arachnida: Scorpiones) updated through 2018. Zootaxa. 2019;4657(1):1-56. [Subscription required for full text]

Thanks to Oscar for sending me his article!