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(Arachnida, Scorpiones) of the Yazd Province, Central Iran

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(Arachnida, Scorpiones) of the Yazd Province, Central Iran ISSN 1211-8788 Acta Musei Moraviae, Scientiae biologicae (Brno) 90: 1–11, 2005 Notes on the scorpion diversity (Arachnida, Scorpiones) of the Yazd province, central Iran VALERIO VIGNOLI 1 & PIERANGELO CRUCITTI 2 1 Università degli Studi di Siena, Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva, Via Aldo Moro 2-53100, Siena, Italy; e-mail: [email protected] 2 Società Romana di Scienze Naturali, Via Fratelli Maristi, 43-00137, Roma, Italy VIGNOLI V. & CRUCITTI P. 2005: Notes on the scorpion diversity (Arachnida, Scorpiones) of the Yazd province, central Iran. Acta Musei Moraviae, Scientiae biologicae (Brno) 90: 1–11. – This work contains the results of the zoological expedition of the Società Romana di Scienze Naturali to Yazd, in central Iran (XXIII mission; April, 2004). The knowledge on scorpiofauna in this region is one of the poorest of Iran. Only two species, Androctonus crassicauda (Olivier, 1807) and Mesobuthus eupeus (C. L. Koch, 1839), were found during a recent three year long study. Six species and five genera, all belonging to the family Buthidae, were collected: Mesobuthus eupeus (C. L. Koch, 1839), Mesobuthus vesiculatus (Pocock, 1899), Androctonus crassicauda (Olivier, 1807), Orthochirus zagrosensis Kovaøík, 2004, Compsobuthus kaftani Kovaøík, 2003, and Odontobuthus doriae (Thorell, 1876). The obtained collecting data was unexpected since we found a very low number of taxa in respect to the two well studied border provinces. Exactly 18 different species belonging to two families (Buthidae, Scorpionidae) are listed for the Esfahan province while the number of species given for the Fars province are 16, belonging to three different families [Buthidae, Liochelidae (sensu SOLEGLAD & FET 2003), Scorpionidae]. The faunistic diversity of six species in the territory around Yazd, with four new records, is higher than specified in existing literature and the unexpected relatively low number of species that were collected could be due to specific seasonal activity patterns. The taxonomy of the collected species is briefly discussed and a checklist of the scorpions of the Yazd, Esfahan and Fars provinces is given. Key words. Scorpiones, biodiversity, taxonomy, Yazd province, Iran Introduction Iran can be divided into four geographical regions: the Caspian, the Zagros, the Southern coastal plains, and finally, the Central Plateau (DARREHSHOURI & KASRAIAN 1998). The province of Yazd is located in the center of Iran, in the Central Plateau region (Fig. 1). On a geomorphological point of view, the province is situated in one of the main highlands, the Central Iranian mountainous area, with Mt. Karkas, 3895 m, and Mt. Shirkuh, 4055 m, as the highest peaks. Climatologically, the province of Yazd is an arid region due to the rain shadow effect of the Alborz and Zagros ranges, in addition to the distance from the Oman Sea, the Persian Gulf and from the Caspian lake. Only 5 % of the entire Iranian territory is under protection for conservation purposes; these lie in representative landscapes which are rich in faunal endemisms. In the Yazd province, the protected areas are: Kalmand and Kuh-e-Bāfq (ZEHZAD et al., 2002), and are principally instituted to study and protect endemic vertebrates. The knowledge of the scorpion biodiversity of the Yazd province is extremely poor. In a recent paper elaborated by Iranian researchers, only two species are listed for the entire province: Mesobuthus 1 V. V IGNOLI & P. CRUCITTI Fig. 1. Map of Iran showing the central position of Yazd province (dark grey) and city (A) and the province in detail with the cities where investigation was doing (B). eupeus (C. L. Koch, 1839) and Androctonus crassicauda (Olivier, 1807) (KARIMI et al. 2001). The same species were listed for Yazd together with other two buthids (Androctonus amoreuxi (Audouin, 1826), Mesobuthus caucasicus (Nordmann, 1840)) in the study of the scorpion collection of the faculty of Science of the University of Teheran elaborated by HABIBI (1971). Thus, we aimed to reinvestigate the scorpion diversity and community structure of the Yazd province in central Iran to elaborate more data for this poorly studied region. Methods We investigated ten different localities which were not casually chosen, and we tried to select different biotopes and altitudes. We investigated anthropic areas, including the suburbs of Taft, Yazd, Baghdādābād and Marvarre Village, besides different natural habitats: steppe (Taft, Ardakan and Bāfq), rocky areas (Taft, Ardakan, Bāfq), peeble pavement (Baghdādābād), semiconsalidated sands (Ardakan, Bāfq, Yazd) and dune sands (Ardakan, Bāfq, Abarqū). Each locality was investigated first during the day and later with UV lamps after sunset. The specimens were collected primarily during night with the use of portable fluorescent lights equipped with UV bulbs. Nevertheless, a few scorpions were collected by “rock rolling” (WILLIAMS 1968) in the sites which were investigated during day and then after sunset, using UV lamps. Locality data were recorded with a portable Garmin GPS receiver. Most of the specimens are preserved in 75 % ethanol and are deposited in the private collection of the first author (VVZC) in the Dipartimento di Biologia 2 Acta Mus. Moraviae, Sci. Biol. (Brno), 90, 2005 Scorpiones of the Yazd province, central Iran Evolutiva, University of Siena, Italy. Three specimens are in the collection of František Kovaøík (FKCP) while six specimens were deposited in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History, New York (AMNH). 1) Material Only buthids were found (family Buthidae); six different described species belonging to five genera. In total, 162 specimens were collected. Several preserved specimens were used as comparative material, all belonging to VVZC: • Androctonus crassicauda Material. 1 juv., Wadi el Mujib, Jordan, 31°30N, 35°41E, 0 m, 31 March 1994, coll. S. Becvar, Det. F. Kovaøík. Mesobuthus vesiculatus (Pocock, 1899): 1 ♀, code 22, Main Abad, Kashan, Esfahan prov., Iran, 11 August 2000; coll. V. Vignoli & P. Crucitti. • Mesobuthus eupeus Material. 1 ♀, Binálúd Mts., Abardeh (40 km west of Mashad), Khorasan prov., Iran, 36°20N, 59°11E, 30 March 1999, coll. J. Kaláb; 1 ♀, Sabalán Mts., Nir (40 km south-west of Ardabil), Ardabil prov., Iran, 38°02N, 47°59E, 14 April 1999, coll. J. Kaláb; 1 ♂, Reiné, Damavand Mts., Mazandaran prov, Iran, 08 August 2002, coll. P. Crucitti; 1 ♀–1 ♂, Ahar, Azerbajan prov., Iran, 31 August 2002, coll. P. Crucitti; 1 ♀, Choplu, Azerbajan prov., Iran, ca. 2200 m, 36°32N, 46°48E, 30 May 1999, coll. L. Saltini. • Compsobuthus kaftani Kovaøík, 2003 Material. 2 ♂ code 05–06, Main Abad, Kashan, Esfahan prov., Iran, 11.VIII.2000, coll. V. Vignoli & P. Crucitti. Results Androctonus crassicauda (Olivier, 1807) Material examined. 1 ♀, No. 01, Yazd, city, 13 April 2004; 1 subad. ♂, No. 02, 12 km north-east of Bāfq, ca. 1209 m, 31°41.948’N, 55°32.069’E, 10 April 2004; 1 subad. ♂, No. 03, west of Baghdādābād, ca. 1502 m, 31°35.210’N, 54°24.585’E, 09 April 2004, coll. V. Vignoli & P. Crucitti. Comments. Androctonus crassicauda is a large dark species whose subspecific division is still not clear (FET & LOWE 2000). Easy to distinguish from the other two congeneric taxa present in Iran; A. amoureuxi (Audouin, 1826) has metasomal segments longer than wide and A. finitimus (Pocock, 1897) is a bright colored species similar to A. australis (Linnaeus, 1758) (TIKADER & BASTAWADE 1983; FET & LOWE 2000). A. crassicauda is a widespread species (FET & LOWE 2000) with a large distribution in Iran, from south to north. The presence of this taxon in the Yazd province is given in bibliography (HABIBI 1971; KARIMI et al. 2001). Totally, three specimens were found; two were donated by people who collected them nearby inhabited houses. One subadult male was found active on a rock during a night exploration on a little rocky-sandy hill, northeast of Bāfq. We 1) Other abbreviations: subad. = subadult, juv. = juvenile Acta Mus. Moraviae, Sci. Biol. (Brno), 90, 2005 3 V. V IGNOLI & P. CRUCITTI Fig. 2. a) Orthochirus zagrosensis Kovařík, 2004, (scale: 3 mm); b) Compsobuthus kaftani Kovařík, 2003, (scale: 6 mm); c) Mesobuthus vesiculatus (Pocock, 1899), (scale: 7 mm); d) Odontobuthus doriae (Thorell, 1876), (scale: 9 mm). know about the common tendence to colonization of human made environments of this scorpion (CRUCITTI 2003) and therefore we surveyed both sites with inhabited houses, in suburbs of Baghdādābād and Taft, and neglected houses, in a little village 5 km south- east of Taft; nevertheless we did not find this species. Even in these field results, A. crassicauda seems to be eurytopic and relatively cryptic. Orthochirus zagrosensis Kovařík, 2004 (Fig. 2a) Material examined. 1 ♀ (paratype, FKCP), No. 04, 2 ♂, No. 04, 05, west of Baghdādābād, ca. 1502 m, 31°35.210’N, 54°24.585’E, 09 April 2004; 1 subad. (paratype, FKCP), No. 06, 1 km east of Taft, ca. 1542 m; 31°44.452’N; 54°13.517’E; 07 April 2004; 3 juv., No. 07, 08, 09, 10 km east of Ardakan, ca. 1235 m, 32°18.626’N, 54°15.133’E, 11 April 2004; 1 ♀ (AMNH), No. 15, 5 km south-east of Taft, ca. 1556 m, 31°44.407’N, 54°15.308’E, 13 April 2004; 1 ♀ (paratype, FKCP), No. 14, 23 km west of Ardakan, Marvarre Village, ca. 1450 m, 32°09.299’N, 53°49.542’E; 12 April 2004; coll. V. Vignoli & P. Crucitti. 4 Acta Mus. Moraviae, Sci. Biol. (Brno), 90, 2005 Scorpiones of the Yazd province, central Iran Comments. In the Catalog of the Scorpions of the World (FET & LOWE 2000), the genus Orthochirus Karsh, 1891 was represented in Iran only by O. scrobiculosus (Grube, 1873) with three subspecies: O. scrobiculosus scrobiculosus (Grube, 1873), O. s. melanurus (Kessler, 1874) and O. s. persa (Birula, 1900). A recent complete revision, which reported six species of the Asian Orthochirus, gave evidence of a higher complexity of this genus in Iran (KOVAØÍK 2004: 26).
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