Scorpions are among the oldest terrestrial arthropods, which are distributed worldwide, except for Antarctica and some Pacific islands. Scorpion envenomation represents a public health problem in several parts of the world. Mexico harbors the highest diversity of scorpions in the world, including some of the world’s medically important scorpion species. The systematics and diversity of Mexican scorpion fauna has not been revised in the past decade; and due to recent and exhaustive collection efforts as part of different ongoing major revisionary systematic projects, our understanding of this diversity has changed compared with previous assessments. Given the presence of several medically important scorpion species, the study of their venom in the country is also important. In the present contribution, the diversity of scorpion species in Mexico is revised and updated based on several new systematic contributions; 281 different species are recorded. Commentaries on recent venomic, ecological and behavioral studies of Mexican scorpions are also provided. A list containing the most important peptides identified from 16 different species is included. A graphical representation of the different types of components found in these venoms is also revised. A map with hotspots showing the current knowledge on scorpion distribution and areas explored in Mexico is also provided.

URL at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728524/

Abstract:

Abstract:
Two new species of the mexicanus group of Vaejovis C.L. Koch are described from the Madrean pine-oak forests of the Sierra Madre Occidental in the state of Durango, Mexico. These species, Vaejovis sierrae sp. nov. and Vaejovis mcwesti sp. nov., are distinguished from each other and the only other species of the mexicanus group known from this mountain range, Vaejovis montanus Graham and Bryson, by morphometrics, carinal development of the pedipalps, granulation of the metasoma, and body size. A key to the species of the mexicanus group from the Sierra Madre

Reference:
Sissom WD, Graham MR, Donaldson TG, Bryson Jr RW. Two new Vaejovis C.L. Koch 1836 from highlands of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Durango, Mexico (Scorpiones, Vaejovidae). Insecta Mundi. 2016 (0477):1-14. [Open Access]

Abstract

Scorpions are among the oldest terrestrial arthropods, which are distributed worldwide, except for Antarctica and some Pacific islands. Scorpion envenomation represents a public health problem in several parts of the world. Mexico harbors the highest diversity of scorpions in the world, including some of the world’s medically important scorpion species. The systematics and diversity of Mexican scorpion fauna has not been revised in the past decade; and due to recent and exhaustive collection efforts as part of different ongoing major revisionary systematic projects, our understanding of this diversity has changed compared with previous assessments. Given the presence of several medically important scorpion species, the study of their venom in the country is also important. In the present contribution, the diversity of scorpion species in Mexico is revised and updated based on several new systematic contributions; 281 different species are recorded. Commentaries on recent venomic, ecological and behavioral studies of Mexican scorpions are also provided. A list containing the most important peptides identified from 16 different species is included. A graphical representation of the different types of components found in these venoms is also revised. A map with hotspots showing the current knowledge on scorpion distribution and areas explored in Mexico is also provided.

See here at http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/8/1/2

Abstract:
Two new species of Pseudouroctonus are described from southeastern Arizona, USA, Pseudouroctonus santarita, sp. nov. from the Santa Rita Mountains and P. kremani, sp. nov. from the Santa Catalina Mountains. These new species are closely related to P. apacheanus (Gertsch et Soleglad, 1972). A combination of morphological differences in the hemispermatophore, the mating plug, and several morphometric-based characters are identified as diagnostic. New substructures are identified for the mating plug.

URL in PDF Format : http://www.science.marshall.edu/fet/euscorpius/p2015_211.pdf

ABSTRACT

The Mexican vaejovid scorpion genus Konentontli González-Santillán and Prendini, 2013, was created to accommodate five species united, among other characters, by a subaculear tubercle on the telson. Species of Konetontli are among the smallest vaejovid scorpions. Their very small size, cryptic coloration, and apparently seasonal surface activity may explain their rarity in collections and it is likely that more undescribed species await discovery. In the present contribution, we describe four new species (Konetontli ignes, sp. nov.; Konetontli ilitchi, sp. nov.; Konetontli juxtlahuaca, sp. nov.; Konetontli migrus, sp. nov.) and revalidate Konetontli zihuatanejensis (Baldazo-Monsivaiz, 2003), comb. nov., previously synonymized with Konetontli acapulco (Armas and Martín-Frías, 2001), raising to 10 the number of species in the genus; redescribe previously described species, including the first description of the female of Konetontli nayarit (Armas and Martín-Frías, 2001); and present new records, comprehensive distribution maps, and a key to the identification of the species.

AUTHORS

Edmundo González-Santillán

City University of New York; Scorpion Systematics Research Group, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History; Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico; Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Biología Comparada, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, Mexico City

Lorenzo Prendini

Scorpion Systematics Research Group, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History

LINK

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1206/907.1

Abstract

A new species of Vaejovis is described from the Mexican state of Aguascalientes. It is assigned to the “mexicanus” group and compared with similar species from Jalisco, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí. A map with their known distributions is provided.

Authors

GERARDO A. CONTRERAS-FÉLIX, OSCAR F. FRANCKE, ROBERT JR. W. BRYSON

Link

http://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3936.1.8

Abstract

The scorpion genus Alacran Francke, 1982, endemic to eastern Mexico, was created to accommodate Alacran tartarusFrancke, 1982. This remarkable troglobiotic species is adapted for life in some of the world’s deepest caves, 720–916 m below the surface in the Sistema Huautla of the state of Oaxaca (the deepest records at which a scorpion has been found). A second species, Alacran chamuco Francke, 2009, was later described from Te Cimutaá, also in Oaxaca. In the present contribution, we describe a third species, Alacran triquimera, sp. nov., recently discovered in a cave system in the state of Puebla, and test the monophyly and internal relationships of Alacran, based on a cladistic analysis of 10 terminal taxa (including seven species representing all four genera of Typhlochactidae) and 151 informative morphological characters, building on a previously published matrix. The single most parsimonious tree obtained, supports the monophyly of Alacran and the following relationships among its component species: (A. chamuco (A. tartarus + A. triquimera, sp. nov.)). The phylogenetic relationships among the three species of Alacran are consistent with the biogeographical history of the caves they inhabit. Based on the geological history of the Sierra Madre del Sur and the likely similar speleogenesis of the Tres Quimeras, Sistema Huautla and Te Cimutaá caves, we propose a vicariance hypothesis to account for the disjunct distribution of the three species of Alacran, whereby an initially more widespread, panmictic ancestral population speciated into three geographically isolated taxa following fragmentation of the southern Sierra Madre del Sur.

Source from the Scorpion Files and CSIRO Publishing.  See URL at http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=IS14035

Abstract
The scorpion genus Diplocentrus Peters, 1861, endemic to North and Central America, is the most diverse in family Diplocentridae
Karsch, 1880. There is considerable morphological variation among the species of Diplocentrus. It is necessary to test the monophyly and
phylogenetic position of Diplocentrus in order to revise its diagnosis and taxonomic limits. The present contribution provides a phylogenetic
analysis of 29 species of Diplocentrus, five exemplar species representing the three putatively most closely related diplocentrid genera,
and an exemplar of a more distantly related diplocentrid genus. The analysis was based on 95 morphological characters and 4202 aligned
nucleotides from DNA sequences of five markers in the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Separate and simultaneous parsimony analyses
of the morphological and DNA sequence data were conducted with equal weighting and six implied weighting regimes. The nuclear
and mitochondrial DNA datasets were also analyzed separately and simultaneously with Bayesian inference. The resulting topologies
recovered the monophyly of Diplocentrus, with the exception of two neobothriotaxic species from central Mexico, for which a new genus
Kolotl Santibáñez-López et al., 2014, is justified. The keyserlingii group, as previously defined, was not monophyletic due to the placement
of two species in the mexicanus group; the rest of its component species were monophyletic, however. A third clade was recovered that has
not been previously recognized: the zacatecanus group, comprising four species from northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.A. New
insights are provided concerning relationships among Diplocentrus and the diplocentrid genera Bioculus Stahnke, 1968 and Didymocentrus
Kraepelin, 1905, the phylogenetic positions of which were previously ambiguous..

http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/publikationen/arthropodsystematics/asp_72_3/03_asp_72_3_santibanez_et_al_257-279.pdf

Edit note with format issues…Thanks and will try to correct.

Abstract