Euscorpius koschewnikowi

Fet, Victor & Soleglad, Michael E., 2002, Morphology analysis supports presence of more than one species in the “ Euscorpius carpathicus ” complex (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae), Euscorpius 3 (3), pp. 1-51 : 47

E. koschewnikowi (36) < E. carpathicus (39) < E. hadzii (52) < E. balearicus (53) < E. tergestinus (59)

Two observations can be made from the above data: 1) E. koschewnikowi has the least developed carinae for both the metasoma and the pedipalp, and likewise, E. tergestinus has the most developed carinae on these two structures; and 2) although more carinae are considered for the metasoma (24 versus 15), the pedipalp quotients were considerably higher, caused in most part by the usually crenulate to serrulate condition of the femoral and patellar carinae and likewise highly reduced development of the metasomal carinae, conditions commonly found throughout the genus. The maximum quotients possible, summing all five species, are 720 and 450, for the metasoma and pedipalp respectively. For the metasoma we have a total quotient of 142, exhibiting a low 19.7% saturation and for the pedipalp, we have 239, showing 53.1% saturation, again illustrating the significantly more developed carinae on the pedipalp. The quotients for E. tergestinus were 3.46 and 1.64 times greater than those exhibited in E. koschewnikowi , metasoma and pedipalp respectively. This implies that the metasoma is the most important of the two characters for differentiating these two species. E. koschewnikovi has by far the smoothest metasoma of any known Euscorpius species, excluding possibly the subgenus Alpiscorpius species.

Individual carinae that stand out as potential diagnostic characters for the two species forming end points of the carination metric are the smooth dorsal carinae of segments I-IV and inferior median carina of V exhibited by E. koschewnikowi , and for E. tergestinus , the pigmented granular dorsal carinae of segments I-IV and the crenulate condition of the inferior median carina of segment V. Also, for E. tergestinus , the ventroexternal carina (V1) of the chela is crenulate whereas it is usually smooth on the other species. Finally, the telson vesicle of E.hadzii is covered with minute granules, whereas it is smooth on the other species.