Tityus GENUS KOCH, 1836 (SCORPIONIDA:BUTHIDAE) IN THE LARA STATE, VENEZUELA. TAXONOMY AND DISTRIBUTION.
E. Yústiz
Decanato de Agronomía, Departmento de Entomología-Zoología, Universidad Centrooccidental "Lisandro Alvarado" (UCLA), Barquisimeto, Lara, Venezuela.
The Lara State is one of the four geopolitical regions in midwestern Venezuela. The central depression in the Lara State and the lateral counterforts of the mountain ranges of Barbacoas, Portuguesa, Coro, and Aroa form a geomorphologic structure which provides the conditions for the diversified Andean, plain, and coastal mountain fauna, making this an important region in the evolution and distribution of biotic components. Scorpions, true living fossil witnesses of the tectonic and paleoclimatic periods in the region, constitute valuable biogeographic models. However, as these venomous arthropods are responsible for an alarming incidence of serious and sometimes fatal envenomings in suburban and rural populations in this region, scorpionism must be approached as a public health problem characterized by using specific epidemiological parameters. In this study, the authors analyzed the taxonomic status of 10 populations of scorpions of the genus Tityus in nine municipalities in the State. They applied an evolutive concept of species and used morphological, morphometric, meristic, and trichobothriotaxic characters taken from recent literature and from the direct examination of 200 male and female specimens that represent at least five phyletic lines. The diagnoses of the four known specimens were compared with those of the new putative species. The ecological and altitudinal distributions of these species were determined, and the number of stung and envenomed individuals was correlated in the ecotopic regions in which potentially dangerous species were detected. The authors also show morphometric charts, graphs, and maps of the scorpion distribution across this region.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
16 Apr 1999 -
Date of issue
1999
