Two new species of burrowing scorpions Urodacus (Scorpiones: Urodacidae) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia with identical external morphology

 

Two new species of burrowing scorpions Urodacus (Scorpiones: Urodacidae) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia with identical external morphology

Abstract

Two new species of urodacid scorpions are described from the Pilbara region in Western Australia, where they are both patchily distributed along creek lines in the northeast of the region. Urodacus uncinus sp. nov. and Urodacus lunatus sp. nov. are indistinguishable based on external morphology: adults are medium-sized, yellow burrowing scorpions with remarkable sexual dimorphism in the telson, in which males have a uniquely swollen vesicle and an aculeus that is more strongly curved than other known species of Urodacus. The species are superficially similar to U. similis L.E. Koch, 1977 and U. yaschenkoi Birula, 1903 in the morphology of the first four metasomal segments, which are extremely short and not much longer than high. The two new species can only be discerned from each other based on the morphology of their hemispermatophores, which highlights the extremely conserved morphology of species in the genus and suggests that many new species await description with careful examination of their genitalia.

ZO23018  Accepted 05 October 2023