Scorpiopinae Kraepelin, 1905

Soleglad, Michael E. & Fet, Victor, 2003, High-level systematics and phylogeny of the extant scorpions (Scorpiones: Orthosterni), Euscorpius 2003 (11), pp. 1-175 : 106

Subfamily Scorpiopinae Kraepelin, 1905

Type Genus. Scorpiops Peters, 1861 .

Composition. The subfamily includes two tribes, Scorpiopini and Troglocormini , and seven genera (Soleglad & Sissom, 2001).

Distribution. North America ( Mexico), Asia (south and southeast).

Taxonomic history. This taxon was originally introduced as a subfamily of Vaejovidae (under Scorpiopsinae , incorrect original spelling) where it persisted for a long time ( Stahnke, 1974), although this placement was considered not satisfactory ( Sissom, 1990). The subfamily Scorpiopsinae was formally elevated to the family level by Stockwell (1992), confirmed by Lourenço (1998c), and listed as a family in Fet (2000h) who corrected the name spelling to Scorpiopidae . A revision of this family was published by Kovařík (2000a). Most recently, Scorpiopidae was downgraded to a subfamily of Euscorpiidae by Soleglad & Sissom (2001), who also introduced two tribes, so that the content of family Scorpiopidae as given in Fet (2000h) and Kovařík (2000a) now corresponds to the tribe Scorpiopini .

Biogeographic history. The scorpiopines exhibit a spectacular disjunction between their main range in tropical Asia (a diverse tribe Scorpiopini ), and the New World ( Mexico) range of the tribe Troglocormini (which survives only as a cave genus Troglocormus ). Such a disjunction could indicate an ancient age of Scorpiopinae , and could be explained by the Laurasian origin of both groups and subsequent differential extinction.

Diagnosis. See Soleglad & Sissom (2001) for details.