Heterometrus spinifer
| Heterometrus spinifer | ||||||||||||
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Heterometrus spinifer , collection of the Göteborgs Naturhistoriska Museum |
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| Heterometrus spinifer | ||||||||||||
| ( Ehrenberg , 1828) |
Heterometrus spinifer is a scorpion of the family Scorpionidae widespreadin Malaysia and southern Thailand .
description
Heterometrus spinifer is a 100 to 135 millimeter long scorpion; adults have a uniform black body color. Only the scissors and the telson can be reddish-brown. Juvenile scorpions have a reddish-brown basic color with a yellow telson. The chelae are slightly lobe-shaped, with a length to width ratio of about 2.4 to 2.6 to 1 in adults. Their upper side is mostly smooth, with suggested keels that form a network pattern. The femora and patella of the pedipalps show no sexual dimorphism . The pedipalps have a thorn-shaped elevation on the inside of the patella. The carapace has a smooth surface with granulated edges. The combs of the comb organ have 15 to 19 teeth in both sexes. The telson is hairy and elongated, with a poisonous bladder longer than the venomous sting .
distribution and habitat
As Terra typica of Heterometrus spinifer ex India was given in the first description . This location is probably wrong.
The range of Heterometrus spinifer is restricted to Malaysia and southern Thailand . Alleged finds from other regions, namely from Cambodia and Vietnam, are incorrectly identified scorpions of the species Heterometrus cimrmani and Heterometrus petersii .
Systematics
Initial description
It was first described in Latin by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg in 1828 . Older literature also shows Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich as the author , the full species name was therefore Hetrometrus spinifer ( Hemprich & Ehrenberg , 1872) . Hemprich had already died in 1825 on a joint research trip, Ehrenberg named him as the first author to honor his achievements as a researcher. The rules of the zoological nomenclature (biology) do not provide for this, so that Ehrenberg is now considered the sole author of the first description.
The date of publication of the first description is 1828, although the relevant volume of the work Symbolae physicae seu icones et descriptiones animalium evertebratorum sepositis insectis quae ex itinere per Africam borealem et Asiam occidentalem ( Symbolae physicae ) has the year of publication 1831 on the title page . The background to this is the practice at the time of bringing out printed works in individual deliveries that were only brought to the bookbinder after a volume was complete. In the case of Heterometrus spinifer , the color plate with the illustration of the species was delivered as early as 1828. This year is considered to be the year of the first description in the zoological nomenclature, because the board shows the species name as a caption, i.e. there is a clear connection between the illustration and the species. If the caption was missing or not clear, the year 1831 would apply, in which the text of the first description was published.
Type material
Ehrenberg based his first description on a subadult male collection specimen which had been collected by the Alexandrian doctor Morpurgo. Morpurgo had supported Hemprich and Ehrenberg financially and as a doctor during their expedition. This copy is in the Berlin Museum of Natural History .
Couzijn wrongly stated in his revision of the genus Heterometrus in 1981 that this holotype was probably lost during the Second World War. For this reason Couzijn designated a scorpion from the collection of the Naturalis Museum of Natural History in Leiden, with the indication of origin Kedah in Malaysia, as a neotype. When Kovařík revised it in 2004, the original holotype was available. Therefore, Kovařík declared the establishment of a neotype in accordance with the International Rules for Zoological Nomenclature invalid.
In addition, the Natural History Museum in London has a series of three adult males, two females and one juvenile scorpion with no indication of origin. These are probably the syntypes with the indications of origin Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore, which Reginald Innes Pocock described in 1900 as Palamnaeus oatesii . This species was synonymous with Heterometrus spinifer by Couzijn in 1981 .
etymology
In his first description of Heterometrus spinifer, Ehrenberg stated the following:
Cubitus humero latior tuberculato-spinosus; hinc noun spiniferi petii.
“ The shoulder joint (has) a broad, thorny hump; hence I covet the name spinifer. "
The feature described is the pointed cusps on the insides of the patella of the pedipalps. The species name is derived from the Latin word spinus (German: thorn ) and the suffix -fer (German: bearing ), meaning thorn-bearer , but without reference to the poison sting .
Genera and synonyms
As a species of the genus Heterometrus , Heterometrus spinifer has been assigned to different genera since it was first described. This was the result of different views of the arachnologists about the validity of individual genres and their differentiation from one another. Heterometrus spinifer was placed in the genera and subgenus Buthus (Heterometrus) , Buthus , Scorpio (Buthus) , Heterometrus , Palamnaeus and most recently in 1981 by Couzijn in the subgenus Heterometrus (Heterometrus) . The subgenus Heterometrus and all other subgenera described by Couzijn were abolished in 2004 by František Kovařík in his revision of the genus Heterometrus .
- The following names have also been used as synonyms in the literature: Palamnaeus laevigatus Thorell , 1876 , Heterometrus longimanus Kraepelin , 1895 (partially) and Palamnaeus oatesii Pocock , 1900 .
literature
- HWC Couzijn: Revision of the genus Heterometrus. In: Zoologische Verhandelingen 1981, Volume 184, No. 1, pp. 1–196 (also dissertation, University of Leiden 1981), here pp. 126–130, online PDF , 18.6 MB.
- 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 f g František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, p. 40.
- ↑ a b c Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg: Zoologica II. Arachnoidea , Plate I: Buthus; Plate II: Androctonus. In: Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg: Symbolae physicae seu icones et descriptiones animalium evertebratorum sepositis insectis quae ex itinere per Africam borealem et Asiam occidentalem . Berolini: Officina Academica 1828, Decas Prima, Plates IX et X, not paginated (chapter Scorpiones ), digitized (text) and digitized (color plate).
- ^ František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, p. 42.
- ^ A b Matt E. Braunwalder and Victor Fet: On publications about scorpions (Arachnida, Scorpiones) by Hemprich and Ehrenberg (1828–1831) . In: Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society 1998, Volume 11, No. 1, pp. 29-35, Online PDF , 544 kB.
- ↑ HWC Couzijn: Revision of the genus Heterometrus, pp. 89-93.
- ^ Reginald Innes Pocock: Arachnida. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Taylor & Francis, London 1900, pp. 98-99, digitized .
- ↑ Alois Walde: Latin Etymological Dictionary , second revised edition. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1910, digitized .
- ↑ Gérard Dupré: Dictionary of scientific scorpion names. In: Arachnides. Bulletin de Terrariophile et de Recherche 2016, Supplement to No. 78, p. 57, Online PDF , 560 kB.
- ↑ HWC Couzijn: Revision of the genus Heterometrus, pp. 88-89.
- ↑ František Kovařík: A review of the genus Heterometrus, pp. 2-4.