02 June, 2015

New Euscorpius species from Southern Bulgaria


The scorpion fauna in Bulgaria is under investigation and in a recent paper Tropea and co-workers present a new species in the genus Euscorpius Thorell, 1876 (Euscorpiidae) from the Western Rhodope Mts. in southern Bulgaria.

Euscorpius drenskii Tropea, Fet, Parmakelis, Kotsakiozi & Stathi, 2015

A special combination of characters has not made it possible to assign the new species to any of the established subgenera.

Abstract:
A new scorpion species, Euscorpius drenskii sp. nov., is described from the Western Rhodope Mts. in southern Bulgaria. It is characterized by an oligotrichous trichobothrial pattern, which shows a conspicuous loss of one trichobothrium in the external median patellar series (em = 3), also observed in E. carpathicus (Linnaeus, 1767) and the subgenus Alpiscorpius Gantenbein, Fet, Largiadèr & Scholl, 1999. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA marker sequences does not show any close relationship between these three groups, suggesting that the observed loss of a trichobothrium is an independent event.

Reference:
Tropea G, Fet V, Parmakelis A, Kotsakiozi P, Stathi I. A new species of Euscorpius (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae) from southern Bulgaria. Arachnologische Mitteilungen. 2015;49:10-20. [Open access]

Thanks to professor Victor Fet and Gioele Tropea for sending me the new article!

Family Euscorpiidae

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