Yellow Mediterranean Scorpion
| Yellow Mediterranean Scorpion | ||||||||||||
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Leiurus quinquestriatus |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Leiurus quinquestriatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Ehrenberg , 1829) | ||||||||||||
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The Yellow Mediterranean Scorpio ( Leiurus quinquestriatus ) is a Scorpio from the family of Buthidae . Due to its poison with an LD50 value of 0.16-0.50 mg / kg, it is one of the most poisonous scorpions in the world. It is also dangerous for humans; a sting can be fatal for children.
features
The species reaches a body length of up to 100 millimeters. Their body is straw yellow to yellow-orange in color. Characteristic for the species are five keels on tergites 1 and 2 of the mesosoma . Tergites 3 to 7 have three typical keels on the back. The fifth segment of the metasoma is dark in color, but in older animals this feature may be weak or not pronounced.
Occurrence and way of life
The species is common in North Africa, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula . It lives in dry desert areas of different soil conditions, but is absent on sand dunes. The yellow Mediterranean scorpion hides in cracks and crevices and under stones.
Poisonous effect
The action of the scorpion poison is based on various neurotoxins : chlorotoxin , charybdotoxin a and charybdotoxin b , scyllatoxin and agitoxin 1 , agitoxin 2 and agitoxin 3 . Chlorotoxin is used as the starting material for the development of a fluorescent marker, which is used in human medicine as a marker for primary brain tumors.
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ L. Soroceanu, Y. Gillespie, MB Khazaeli, H. Sontheimer: Use of Chlorotoxin for Targeting of Primary Brain Tumors. In: Cancer Res. 58, 1998, pp. 4871-4879. PMID 9809993
