A checklist of the scorpions of Ecuador (Arachnida: Scorpiones), with notes on the distribution and medical significance of some species

Abstract

Ecuador harbors one of the most diverse Neotropical scorpion faunas, hereby updated to 47 species contained within eight genera and five families, which inhabits the “Costa” (n = 17), “Sierra” (n = 34), “Oriente” (n = 16) and “Insular” (n = 2) biogeographical regions, corresponding to the western coastal, Andean, Amazonian, and the Galápagos archipelago regions, respectively. The genus Tityus Koch, in the family Buthidae, responsible for severe/fatal accidents elsewhere in northern South America and the Amazonia, is represented in Ecuador by 16 species, including T. asthenes, which has caused fatalities in Colombia and Panama, and now in the Ecuadorian provinces of Morona Santiago and Sucumbíos. Underestimation of the medical significance of scorpion envenoming in Ecuador arises from the fact that Centruroides margaritatus (Gervais) (family Buthidae) and Teuthraustes atramentarius Simon (family Chactidae), whose venoms show low toxicity towards vertebrates, frequently envenom humans in the highly populated Guayas and Pichincha provinces. This work also updates the local scorpion faunal endemicity (74.5 %) and its geographical distribution, and reviews available medical/biochemical information on each species in the light of the increasing problem of scorpionism in the country. A proposal is hereby put forward to classify the Ecuadorian scorpions based on their potential medical importance.

Phylogeny, species delimitation and convergence in the South American bothriurid scorpion genus Brachistosternus Pocock 1893: Integrating morphology, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA

“…Brachistosternus ehrenbergii (Gervais, 1841) occupies a wide area from northern Chile to central Peru, and exhibits some intraspecific differences among populations (Ochoa & Ojanguren-Affilastro, 2007). Putative records from Ecuador (Brito & Borges, 2015) are erroneous and correspond to B. pegnai. Seven specimens from across the known distribution were compared to test whether these populations are conspecific.…”

The Impact of Climatic Factors on Spatial Distribution of Scorpion Stings in Ardabil Province, North-West of Iran; 2012 - 2017

“…Approximately, the mortality due to the scorpion stings is annually more than 3250 cases in the world, and less than 20 human cases in Iran (4). Scorpion belongs to phylum Arthropoda and class Arachnida and to date 16 families of scorpions are identified worldwide (5,6). There are three families of scorpions in Iran: Buthidae, Hemiscorpiidae, and Scorpionidae; 1500 species of scorpions are identified in the world of which 50 species are dangerous to humans (7); 23 genus and 44 species are identified in Iran.…”

The geographical patterns of distribution of the genus Teuthraustes Simon, 1878 in Ecuador and description of three new species (Scorpiones, Chactidae)

“…Exceptions remain however: T. amazonicus Simon, described from the region of Pebas, located on the banks of the Solimões River in Peruvian Amazonia, then later found in Brazilian and Colombian Amazonia, T. glaber Kraepelin and T. castiglii Rossi, both also described from the region of Pebas, Peru (to notice that the precise locality of T. glaber was originally indicated as only Peru, however in the personal notes by Simon the type specimen is indicated as from the region of Pebas), T. braziliensis Lourenço & Duhem, described from Brazilian Amazonia, T. dubius Borelli and T. festae Borelli, described from Morona-Santiago Province in Ecuador, T. rosenbergi Pocock, described from Guayas Province in Ecuador, and finally the three new species described in the present paper. In a recent publication by Brito and Borges (2015) , an attempted checklist of the scorpions from Ecuador was proposed. This contribution is a compilation of previous works and no new species or locations were added neither to this fauna in general nor to the genus Teuthraustes in particular.…”