Buthus tassili Lourenco , 2002

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 : 36

49. Buthus tassili Lourenco, 2002

Buthus tassili : Lourenço 2002: 113-115, fig. 10, 12, 14; Lourenço 2003: 906-909, fig. 80-86; Rossi, Tropea and Yağmur 2013: 3-5, 7.

Buthus occitanus (MIS): Pallary 1929: 134, 140; Pallary 1934: 98-99.

Buthus occitanus tunetanus neeli : Gysin 1969: 65-71, fig. 1-5; Peréz 1974: 22; Touloun 2012: 37, 40.

Buthus occitanus tunetatus, “Spécimens des régions montagneuses centrales du Sahara": Vachon 1952a: 279.

Type material.

1 M holotype (MNHN N° RS8501), Tin Tazarif (approx. 24.466°, 10.466°), Illizi, Algeria. Paratype: 1 F (MNHN N° RS8622), same locality.

Distribution.

This species is known from a wide area around the Hoggar and Tassili N’Ajjer Mountains, including at least one locality in Libya.

Remarks.

The Tin Tazarif coordinates given here, standing at 880 m a.s.l., do not match the altitude given for the point by Lourenço (2002), of 1.800 m a.s.l., but correspond well to the map location given by the author in Figure 6 of the same article. Nevertheless there are several locations in the Tassili N’Ajjer Mountains at or above 1.800 m a.s.l., located closer to Jebel Azao, its highest peak. The species ranges from the Hoggar Mountains to the Tassili N’Ajjer Mountains, including Ghat in Libya. Gysin’s name, B. o. t. neeli , is not available under the ICZN article 10.2 and 45.5, as already stated by Fet and Lowe (2000). Therefore, it cannot enter formal synonymy. Nevertheless, because Gysin’s description (1969) brings relevant taxonomic information (figures and new localities) for B. tassili , we have decided to clearly state this new informal synonymy. The specimens studied of both species come from the Algerian Hoggar Mountains and share a typical darkened fifth segment of the metasoma (see B. nigrovesiculosus above).