The Tityus stigmurus complex

The T. stigmurus complex was first designated as a group of species by Mello-Leitão (1945). This group, according to Mello-Leitão, comprised three species being one of them subdivided into two subspecies: Tityus acutidens Mello-Leitão, 1933, T. stigmurus Thorell, 1877, T. serrulatus serrulatus Lutz & Mello, 1922 and T. serrulatus vellardi Mello-Leitão, 1939 . Lourenço (1981), after revising this group, synonymised T. serrulatus vellardi with T. serrulatus, and established the Tityus stigmurus complex, including the new species Tityus lamottei Lourenço, 1981 . Lourenço and Clousdley-Thompson (1999) informally suggested the synonymy of T. serrulatus with T. stigmurus, but only synonymised T. lamottei with T. stigmurus and proposed a new system of classification for the complex, based on the color patterns (referred to here as morphs) inside the T. stigmurus complex based on color patterns: morph confluenciata (corresponding to T. serrulatus), morph confluenciata/maculata (corresponding to T. lamottei), morph unifasciata (corresponding to T. stigmurus), and morph trifasciata (corresponding to a previously undescribed species, T. martinpaechi, latter described by Lourenço (2001). This classification system is not followed here. Two new species were subsequently included in the complex, T. martinpaechi Lourenço, 2001 and T. aba Candido et al, 2005 increasing the number of species to five (Candido et al, 2005; Souza et al, 2006).

In this paper, the species of the T. stigmurus complex are revised. The males of T. serrulatus and T. stigmurus are redescribed based on specimens from States of Minas Gerais and Bahia, respectively, in Brazil. The redescriptions are necessary, since the male of T. serrulatus sensu Lourenço & Cloudsley-Thompsom (1999) was discovered to be a misidentification and the sexual dimorphism of T. stigmurus is poorly described and illustrated. A redescription of the female of T. kuryi is presented, since only the holotype is known. New records, photos and detailed illustrations for T. kuryi are given. New records for all species of the complex are presented.