Heterometrus beccaloniae
| Heterometrus beccaloniae | ||||||||||||
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| Heterometrus beccaloniae | ||||||||||||
| Kovařík , 2004 |
Heterometrus beccaloniae is an Indian scorpion in the Scorpionidae family .
description
The holotype is a 115 millimeter long female animal with a uniform black color. Only the telson is reddish yellow in adults and yellow in juveniles, the sternum and comb organ are brown. The combs of the comb organ have 14 to 16 teeth. The femora of the pedipalps are extraordinarily wide, convex and only about twice as long as they are wide. The femora and patella of the pedipalps are covered with granules on the entire upper surface. The telson is hairy, with a poisonous bladder that is longer than the poison sting . According to the first description , the vesiculum is elongated in juvenile animals and vesicular in adults. No male has been found so far.
Heterometrus beccaloniae is very similar to the species Heterometrus wroughtoni , but differs from it by its less lobed chelae with more knots and granules on the surface . The characteristically shaped femora of the pedipalps distinguish Heterometrus beccaloniae from all other species of the genus Heterometrus .
distribution and habitat
The terra typica of Heterometrus beccaloniae are the Javadi Mountains near the village of Kavalur in Tehsil Vaniyambadi , Vellore district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu ( 12 ° 35 ′ N , 78 ° 50 ′ E ). It is about 600 meters above sea level. In the first description, further finds from the Mudumalai National Park in the Nilgiri Mountains , in the triangle of the Indian states of Karnataka , Kerala and Tamil Nadu, were identified as Heterometrus beccaloniae and listed as Paratypes. When Heterometrus atrascorpius was first described in 2012, it was pointed out that the alleged sites are approximately 500 kilometers apart and have very different ecological conditions. The specimens from the Nilgiri Mountains are considered to belong to Heterometrus atrascorpius .
Systematics
Initial description
The first description was made by František Kovařík as part of his 2004 revision of the genus Heterometrus . The holotype is a 115 millimeter long adult female. Eight paratypes were identified, one exuvia and seven juvenile specimens. The type material is in the collection of František Kovařík in Prague.
In 2012, the paratypes from the Nilgiri Mountains by Zeeshan A. Mirza , Devavarat Joshi , Gavin Desouza and Rajesh V. Sanap were added to the newly described species Heterometrus atrascorpio . The authors criticized that Kovařík had determined a population after the examination of exclusively juvenile specimens. This is not possible without genetic testing, since the characteristics required to determine the species are only revealed in adult animals. In addition, they held against Kovařík that he had not given any detailed information about the paratypes.
etymology
The species name honors Janet Beccaloni , the curator of the collections of arachnids , millipedes , tardigrades and columbus at the Natural History Museum in London, for her support of Kovařík's research.
literature
- František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus Ehrenberg, 1828, with descriptions of seven new species (Scorpiones, Scorpionidae). In: Euscorpius , 2004, No. 15, pp. 1-60, online PDF , 6.3 MB.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, p. 4.
- ↑ František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, p. 51.
- ↑ František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, p. 7.
- ^ A b Zeeshan A. Mirza, Devavarat Joshi, Gavin Desouza and Rajesh V. Sanap: Description of a new species of scorpion of the genus Heterometrus Ehrenberg, 1828 (Scorpiones: Scorpionidae) from the Western Ghats, India. In: Indian Journal of Arachnology 2012, Volume 1, No. 2, pp. 1–8, online PDF , 469 kB.
- ↑ Mrs Jan Beccaloni , Natural History Museum website, accessed November 18, 2017.