Euscorpius hakani, Tropea & Yağmur, 2016

Tropea, Gioele & Yağmur, Ersen Aydın, 2016, Two new species of Euscorpius Thorell, 1876 from southern Turkey (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae), Euscorpius 234, pp. 1-19 : 16-17

Distinction of E. hakani sp. n. from the other Turkish Euscorpius species

In Turkey, there are sixteen species of the genus Euscorpius (not including E. hakani sp. n.), all morphologically and/or geographically well distinguishable from E. hakani sp. n.

E. hakani sp. n. has the trichobothrial series V = 3, which easily distinguishes it from E. italicus ; the trichobothrial series on the pedipalp patella external surface em = 3 that distinguishes it from E. aladaglarensis sp. n.; and the trichobothrial series em = 3 + the carina V 1 that follows an oblique direction toward the inside of the trichobothrium Et 1, that distinguishes it from the phylogenetically distant species with em = 4.

E. hakani sp. n. can be easily distinguishes from the others species with em = 3 mainly by the peculiar trichobothrial series Pv = 7; indeed all the others species with em = 3 have Pv <7, except E. ciliciensis , which has the same trichobothrial count of E. hakani sp. n. However, the latter can be distinguished from E. ciliciensis by (1) the dorsal patellar spur barely developed in E. hakani sp. n. versus a dorsal patellar spur welldeveloped in E. ciliciensis ; (2) trichobothrium V 4 situated on the carina V1 or almost on it in E. hakani sp. n. while it is situated on the external surface of the chela not in contact with the carina V 1 in E. ciliciensis ; (3) E. hakani sp. n. has the metasomal carinae most developed, especially those of the metasomal segment V, which both ventromedian and ventrolateral carinae are well formed and granulated while in E. ciliciensis the metasomal segment V can be smooth, almost smooth, or with a few small spaced granule, mostly ventrolaterally; (4) E. hakani sp. n. has Lcar/Lfer> 1.29 (range 1.30–1.41; mean 1.37 SD 0.14) vs. Lcar/Lfer <1.30 (range 1.11– 1.27; mean 1.22 SD 0.06) in E. ciliciensis ; (5) E. hakani sp. n. has Lmet/Lcar> 2.76 (2.77–3.33; mean 3.06 SD 0.25) vs. Lmet/Lcar <2.77 (2.37–3.76; mean 2.62 SD 0.23) in E. ciliciensis . In addition, E. hakani sp. n. occurs in Denizli Province in southwestern Turkey while E. ciliciensis occurs in the eastern part of the Central Taurus Mts.

The species geographically closer to E. hakani sp. n. is E. honazicus . They have very similar and overlapping morphological proportions. However E. hakani sp. n. is on average larger than E. honazicus , with an average of 28.42 and a range of 26–31 vs. a mean of 26.11 and a range of 22–29 respectively. In addition, the metasomal carinae have, especially on the ventral surface of the segments IV and V, often the tubercles more pronounced in E. honazicus . However with the series Pv = 7, E. hakani sp. n. is easily distinguishable from E. honazicus .

Comments

In the last years our group has been intensively studying the genus Euscorpius in Turkey, resulting in a significant increase of the species of this genus in the country. Since 2012, the number of species in Turkey have increased from 2 to 17, including the new species herein described ( Tropea & Yağmur, 2015, 2016; Tropea et al., 2012, 2014a, 2015b, 2016a, 2016b; Yağmur & Tropea, 2013, 2015; Yağmur et al., 2013).

These species have been found mostly in relatively restricted mountainous areas with the exception of E. mingrelicus , which, at present, has a very extensive distribution when compared to other Turkish species of Euscorpius . Indeed, already Tropea et al. (2015b) recommended further studies, especially genetic. This high degree of speciation in mountainous areas, often with restricted distribution areas, is in agreement with other new species of Euscorpius described in other countries in recent years (see Tropea et al., 2013, 2014b, 2015a, 2015c).

Our unpublished morphological and molecular data indicate the presence of probable good species from different mountainous areas and that some populations might need to be more thoroughly investigated (Tropea & Yağmur, 2016).

Recently, Fet et al. (2016) presented a phylogeny based on specimens related to subgenus Alpiscorpius , collected in Turkey. Independently, our group also is studying different populations on genetic basis, in addition to the morphological, and the high diversification shown from their data is in accordance with our published, and unpublished, morphological and genetic data.

In this paper we describe two new species, E. hakani sp. n. and E. aladaglarensis sp. n. The latter species was known to us for several years, but we were waiting for additional specimens to get satisfactory statistical sampling and confirmation that the peculiar character combination et = 6 and em = 4 were fixed. For this work, we examined 112 pedipalps, in which et = 6 was present in 76%, and em = 4 in the 97.3%, demonstrating that these characters are hard fixed in this population. The phylogeny of Fet et al. (2016) showed a population from Kayseri Province with the character em = 4, which corresponds to E. aladaglarensis sp. n. According to their phylogeny based on COI marker for this population, it was closely related to E. ciliciensis , as was expected, showing only the 4% of genetic divergence. This level of divergence is not very high for the COI. However, it is noteworthy that E. aladaglarensis sp. n. also is not highly divergent from E. eskisehirensis (4.4%) and E. phrygius (“ Euscorpius sp. from Ankara ” in Fet et al., 2016; see Tropea et al., 2016a for explanations) (4.8 %). Their phylogenetic tree shows that these species are well separated, with the divergence of lineages between the Pliocene and the Pleistocene. The second new species described herein, E. hakani sp. n., having the trichobothrial series Pv = 7, et = 5, and em = 3, also presents a peculiar trichobothrial pattern, only shared with E. ciliciensis (and some specimens of E. mingrelicus ; Tropea, unpublished data). However, the morphology, in accordance with the geographical area, suggests that this species is related to other species with the typical series Pv = 6, as E. arikani and E. honazicus . The latter species is geographically the closest, being present on Mt. Honaz but easily distinguishable by the Pv series. Kinzelbach (1975) reports some populations with Pv = 7 from the southwestern Turkey, more pre- cisely from “Acipayam, SSE Denizli ”, “Honaz Dagi, E Denizli ”, “Egridir”, and “Kokikos bei Kizkale”. These locations are the same as cited by Vachon (1951). He identified them as E. germanus ciliciensis in the map, but in the text he stated that they could be a variety of this subspecies, or a new form. It should be noted that Vachon did not list the number of trichobothria of these specimens. In addition, the specimens from Mt. Honaz ( E. honazicus ) have Pv =6, as do all the populations in the neighbourhood, except E. hakani sp. n. Therefore, a probably explanation for the Kinzelbach's data could be that he erroneously assumed a priori that these specimens have Pv = 7 since they were identified by Vachon as E. g. ciliciensis ; therefore actually this is the first time that this population is signalled.

Additional specimens as well as both morphological and genetic studies are needed to better understand the true diversity and relationships of these species, as well of the others of the genus Euscorpius in Turkey. Within the frame of a well informed morphological and molecular phylogeny approach, it is very likely that the number of species will increase.