Buthus parroti Vachon, 1949

Sousa, Pedro, Arnedo, Miquel A. & Harris, D. James, 2017, Updated catalogue and taxonomic notes on the Old-World scorpion genus Buthus Leach, 1815 (Scorpiones, Buthidae), ZooKeys 686, pp. 15-84 : 35

44. Buthus parroti Vachon, 1949 stat. n.

Buthus atlantis parroti: Vachon 1949a: 168-169, fig. 346, 350, 352-354, 356, 363; Vachon 1952a: 254-255, fig. 346, 350, 352, 353, 354, 356, 363; Le Corroller 1967: 63; Pérez, 1974 1974: 22; El-Hennawy 1992: 98, 119; Kovařík 1995: 20; Kovařík 1998: 106; Lourenço 2003: 883-885, fig. 23-26; Fet and Lowe 2000: 91-92; Touloun 2012: 43, fig. 9B; Pedroso et al. 2013: 300.

Type material.

1 F (MNHN N° RS1870), 1F, 12 juv., syntypes (MNHN), Forest house (approx. 30.31°, -9.33°), Ademine Forest, 40 Km S.W. of Agadir, Morocco; 2 M, 1 F juv., syntypes (MNHN), Taroudant (approx. 30.46°, -8.87°), Morocco.

Distribution.

Known only from the Sous River Valley. Type localities in Fet and Lowe (2000) were mixed up.

Remarks.

B. parroti was first described as a subspecies of B. atlantis . The two species occupy different habitats in Western Morocco; B. parroti is a forest species and B. atlantis is a sand dune dweller ( Vachon 1952a). Furthermore, B. atlantis is clearly larger than B. parroti . Additionaly, the first metasomal segment of B. parroti is wider than long, the aculeus is shorter than the vesicle and the anal arch has only two lobes ( Vachon 1952a), while in B. atlantis this segment is longer than wide, the aculeus is as long as or longer than the vesicle and the anal arch has three lobes ( Vachon 1952a). Three additional Buthus species occur in the same area of Morocco as B. parroti , namely B. elmoutaouakili Lourenço & Qi, 2006, B. mardochei Simon, 1878 and B. mariefranceae . B. parroti can be distinguished from all three species by the presence of macrosetae in the terguites ( Vachon 1952a). Moreover, it can be distinguished from B. mariefranceae by its larger size and absence of a dark fifth metasomal segment. Mesosoma colour pattern is not clear for B. parroti ; the examined specimen at the MNHN (RS1870) (Fig. 16) appears to have two very faint darker stripes, while B. mariefranceae has two very well marked mesosomal dark stripes. B. parroti males show slender pedipalp chelae than females, while there is little if any sexual dimorphism in B. mardochei .