Tityus imei, Borges, Adolfo, Sousa, Leonardo De & Manzanilla, Jesús, 2006

Borges, Adolfo, Sousa, Leonardo De & Manzanilla, Jesús, 2006, Description of a new Tityus species (Scorpiones: Buthidae) from Sierra de Portuguesa, western Venezuela, based on morphological and mitochondrial DNA evidence, Zootaxa 1107, pp. 49-68 : 52-54

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.171467
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6256549
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/038EC02A-A339-FFF3-BA2E-82C7FB2F439F
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Tityus imei
status	sp. nov.

Treatment

Tityus imei View in CoL sp. nov.

Figs. 1–5 View FIGURE 1 View FIGURE 2 View FIGURE 3 View FIGURE 4 View FIGURE 5

Specimens of the Type series include 11 types (1 male Holotype, 3 male Paratypes, 7 female Paratypes) which have been deposited at the “Colección de Escorpiones del Laboratorio de Toxinología” (CELT), Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud (CICS), School of Medicine, Universidad de Oriente (UDO), Anzoátegui State, Venezuela.

Holotype. CELT690, adult male from La Guayana coffee plantation (9°21'30"N, 69°55'30"W, 1 200 m elev.), 15 km northeast of Biscucuy, Municipio José Vicente de Unda, Portuguesa State, Venezuela. Colected by A. Borges, 25/v/2003.

Paratypes. Three adult males (CELT691, 692, 693) and four adult females (CELT 686, 687, 688, 689) with the same data to holotype. Three adult females; CELT667, 668, 669: A. Borges, 30/xi/2002, road to Morador, 15 km north of Ospino, Portuguesa State, Venezuela (N 9º17’30”; W 69º28’21”).

Etymology. The name imei is a patronym honoring the Instituto de Medicina Experimental, whose abbreviation is IME, located at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela, where the new species was first analyzed.

Definition and diagnosis. A mediumsized Tityus species (males 79.85–86.60 mm, females 73.38–77.63 mm). This species exhibits a marked sexual dimorphism, and has been tentatively placed into the “androcottoides” group (sensu GonzálezSponga 1996), integrated by species with metasomal (segments I to IV) ventral keels which are double in their first half and then converge into a single, central keel in the second half.

T. imei sp nov. is characterized by the following combination of characters: (1) Metasomal segment II in females, with ventral double keels which converge in the distal third, or ventral keels which are parallel in its entire length, including a welldefined central keel in the second half of the segment; (2) Dorsal femur trichobothria d3, d4 and d5 form an obtuse angle (approximately 140° in males and 150° in females).

The new species can be distinguished from its closest geographic neighbors by the following characters: in T. sanarensis , imaginary lines connecting dorsal femur trichobothria d3, d4 and d5 form a 180° angle while in T. imei sp. nov. such trichobothria form a 140° angle. T. imei also differs from T. sanarensis in the array of metasomal segment II ventral keels in the two distal thirds of the segment (keels are convergent in T. imei ). It can be distinguished from T. boconoensis in the shape of the male telson (ovoid in T. boconoensis and elongated and semielliptic in T. imei ) and also in metasomal segment IV ventral keels. T. imei has unique central keel in its entire segment length, whereas in T. boconoensis the keels are double and parallel although poorly defined in the the proximal third, and unique in the distal two thirds.

Tityus rusmelyae GonzálezSponga, D ´Suze & Sevcik 2001, another geographically related species, from Humocaro Alto, in the state of Lara, differs from males of T. imei sp. nov. in the array of ventral keels in metasomal segment IV: in T. rusmelyae , keels are double and parallel in the first half of the segment and unique in the second half; in T. imei , a single, central keel is present in its entire length. Total body dimensions (males) also differ between the two species: 55.28 mm for T. rusmelyae and 85.53 mm for T. imei .