Scorpionidae
Emperor Scorpion
The Scorpionidae are a family of scorpions ( Scorpiones ) with four genera.
Features
Some Scorpionidae reach heights of up to 20 centimeters and a weight of up to 32 grams. This group includes with Heterometrus swammerdami from India and Sri Lanka as well as the Emperor Scorpion ( Pandinus imperator), the largest scorpion species in general. The types have a large pentagonal chest plate as well as strong scissor legs.
Distribution and habitat
Types Scorpionidae are common in Africa and Asia. They live in forests, rain forests and steppes. In desert areas such as the Sahara, they do not occur.
Scorpionidae and people
Especially the great emperor scorpions and some other species to be kept as terrarium animals. The poison Scorpionidae is relatively harmless in most species, some also have, however, toxins that can be dangerous to humans.
System
Latreille originally represented (1802 ) all scorpions in the "family" Scorpiones together. Later, the scorpions were of an order that included several families. The Scorpionidae family in 1893 divided by Pocock in several subfamilies: Diplocentrini, Hemiscorpiini, Ischnurini, Scorpionini and Urodacini. Most subfamilies were collected for their own families in the 20th century or provided to other families. Finally, only the four genera of Scorpionini remained in the family Scorpionidae.
These four genera, come in biogeographically separate distribution areas in Africa and Asia before:
- Heterometrus Ehrenberg, 1828 (India and Southeast Asia)
- Opistophthalmus CL Koch, 1837 ( Southern Africa )
- Pandinus Thorell, 1876 ( West, East and Central Africa )
- Scorpio Linnaeus, 1758 ( North Africa and Middle East to southern Turkey and the eastern Iran)
2003 broke Michael E. Sole Glad and Victor Fet on the family Diplocentridae and added all kinds of mainly distributed in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean genres in the Scorpionidae family. However, other authors such as Lorenzo Prendini and Ward C. Wheeler of the American Museum of Natural History hold the Diplocentridae for a while closely related, but separate, with clear differentiators family. Therefore, in November 2005, they released a counter statement in which it rejected all changes. Already in December 2005, followed by the response of brine Glad and Fet, who insisted on their revision.
In 2005 the family Urodacidae was disbanded with the single genus Urodacus in a revision of Sole Glad, Fet and Kovarik and incorporated as a subfamily Urodacinae in the Scorpionidae. This regrouping is likewise not generally accepted. So put Volschenk and Prendini 2008, the newly discovered genus Aops with the way Aops oncodactylus again into the family of Urodacidae.