Buthus nigrovesiculosus Hirst, 1925

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 : 34

39. Buthus nigrovesiculosus Hirst, 1925 stat. n.

Buthus europaeus nigrovesiculosus: Hirst 1925: 416.

Buthus occitanus nigrovesiculosus: Pérez 1974: 22; Fet and Lowe 2000: 96.

Type material.

1 M (adult?), 1 juv., syntypes (NHMUK), Boste (approx. 23.79°, -15.68°), Rio de Oro (Western Sahara), now Morocco.

Distribution.

known only from the type locality.

Remarks.

Hirst identified this North African species as a subspecies of B. occitanus , but as currently circumscribed, B. occitanus does not occur in North Africa ( Gantenbein and Largiadèr 2003, Sousa et al. 2012). The original description of B. nigrovesiculosus suggests morphological similarities to B. draa and B. tassili Lourenço, 2002. These three species have a dark, almost black, fifth segment of the metasoma (Fig. 14 and 15A, less clear in the male type, obvious in the juvenile, syntypes in the NHMUK). Males of these three species also show slender pedipalp chelae. The type series of B. nigrovesiculosus includes only two animals, and more material is necessary to correctly evaluate the relationship between these three species. Nevertheless the males of B. nigrovesiculosus can be distinguished from males of the other two species by a higher pectinal tooth count (Fig. 10 and 15B, 36 versus <32 in the other two species), and from B. tassili by having a squared first metasomal segment.