Scorpiops margerisonae Kovařík, 2000

Scorpiops margerisonae Kovařík, 2000 View in CoL

( Figures 108 View Figures 107–108 , 111, 114 View Figures 109–114 , 119–120, 125–126 View Figures 115–126 ) http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:8CE10215-

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MATERIAL EXAMINED. CHINA, Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa City, Nyêmo (or Nimu) County , 29°19'00.7''N 90°18'43.8''E (29.31685629°N 90.31216129°E), 3698 m a. s. l., 20 th July 2023, 1♂ 1juv.♀, leg. Tongtong, VT GoogleMaps .

REMARKS. S. margerisonae was originally described on the basis of a single adult male of unknown locality in Tibet ( Kovařík, 2000: 189). This species was characterized by the presence of movable finger proximal lobe in male, a PVTC of 8–9, a PETC of 17 and a PTC of 12–13. A subsequent redescription was made by Di & Zhu (2010) where its female was reported for the first time. The materials examined by the authors were obtained from two prefecture-level cities in Tibet, Nyingchi (Nang County) and Shannan (Nêdong District), without precise coordinates. Most illustrations were hand drawn except for two colored photographs depicting the overall habitus in dorsal view (Di & Zhu, 2010: figs. 22–23). Qualitative characters are susceptible to inaccuracy if they were manually illustrated, which appears to be the case in their illustration for the male pectines. Referring to their quantitative characters, their new specimens were featured by a PVTC of 9–10, and a PTC of 9–12 (commonly 10–11) in males and 8–10 (commonly 8–9) in females. In the revision of Scorpiopidae by Kovařík et al. (2020: 129, table 9), those data from two sources were coalesced. Colored photographs for the pectine and chela of adult male S. margerisonae were provided (Kovařík et al., 2020: figs. 147, 227). According to their map (Kovařík et al., 2020: fig. 799), two records of S. margerisonae (labeled “47”) appeared to be located between Lhasa and Shannan cities. The two new specimens examined in this study were collected from Nyêmo of Lhasa, which seems to be close to the left record on their map.

In the original description, Kovařík (2000: 189) considered S. margerisonae to be closest to S. tibetanus . During the current investigation, we checked all known Tibetan congeners and reckoned three species that share certain degrees of resemblance, S. atomatus , S. tibetanus and S. wrzecionkoi , all of which has a developed (regardless of the degree) proximal lobe in both sexes. S. atomatus is similar to S. margerisonae in the following characters: (1) PVTC 8–10; (2) PETC 17; (3) PTC 10–11 in males and 8–9 in females. Lv & Di (2022b: 212) considered S. margerisonae differs by a lower chela L/W ratio of 2.1–2.2 (more slender in females), while characterizing male and female S. atomatus as 2.3 and 2.5, respectively. In contrast, Kovařík et al. (2020: 129, table 9) documented male and female S. margerisonae as 2.2–2.3 and 2.2, respectively. This insinuates a weaker distinction between males of the two species in terms of their chela L/W ratio. The female S. margerisonae examined in this study possessed a noticeable proximal lobe which may imply maturity ( Fig. 107 View Figures 107–108 ), while its relatively small size suggests otherwise. No firm conclusion can be drawn as we are ignorant of the lobe possessed by an adult female S. margerisonae . If this female is a subadult, then both specimens quite resembled the adults of S. atomatus depicted in Lv & Di (2022b: figs. 1, 3). With reference to Kovařík et al. (2020) and Lv & Di (2022b), we discovered that the most prominent difference lies in the count of finger denticles where S. atomatus has 58–62 MD and 8–9 IAD, as opposed to the presence of 40 MD and 30 IAD in S. margerisonae ; figures of movable finger dentition can be found in Kovařík et al. (2020: fig. 118) and Lv & Di (2022b: fig. 28). Our current examination also detected a discordance in pectinal morphology, where the pectinal teeth are shorter relative to the width of the pectinal lamellae in S. atomatus (cf. Lv & Di, 2022b: figs. 11, 13). The pectinal morphology of the adult male examined here accorded with the one depicted in Kovařík et al. (2020: fig. 147). Unlike S. atomatus , S. tibetanus can be more easily distinguished from S. margerisonae by its more rounded and robust pedipalp chela with strongly developed external secondary carinae (cf. Lv & Di, 2022b: figs. 58, 62) and a lower PTC (4–7 in both sexes), despite a more similar pectinal morphology in males.

Initially, considering the geographic proximity, the two specimens were presumed to be S. wrzecionkoi . According to the coordinates provided in the original description (29.20°N 90.58°E; Kovařík, 2020: 30), this species was described from Nagarzê County (near Sangjian) in Shannan City , based on two adult females and one juvenile. Our specimens were obtained from somewhere in Nyêmo , ca. 29.05 km northwest of the type locality of S. wrzecionkoi . Tang (2023: figs. 81–82) depicted a chela that was presumptively considered to belong to an adult male S. wrzecionkoi . This specimen, received as a gift from a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science several years ago (around 2017) by the first author, was accompanied by an adult female. Unfortunately , no precise coordinates were provided for the two specimens, aside from the assertion that they were collected from Lhasa. Subsequent examination of the female specimen revealed a striking conformity with the original description for S. wrzecionkoi : (1) rectangular chela manus; (2) moderate proximal lobe on movable finger present; (3) pectines with 3 marginal and 4 middle lamellae; (4) PTC 8 /9; (5) PVTC 9 . Consequently , the male counterpart was identified. As a supplementary information, photos of those two dry specimens are included herein ( Figs. 109–110, 112– 113 View Figures 109–114 , 115–118, 121–124 View Figures 115–126 ) GoogleMaps .

Since preserved specimens are susceptible to color alteration, our identification discarded the apparently yellowish brown tonality of S. wrzecionkoi specimens. When referring to the discrete quantitative characters, according to table 9 in Kovařík et al. (2020: 129), the two species share an overlapped PTC for both sexes (8–9 in female S. wrzecionkoi , with data of male based on the aforementioned specimen, 11/10), PVTC (9–11 in S. wrzecionkoi ), and count of ID, OD and IAD (same for both species: 4, 8 and 30, respectively). However, S. wrzecionkoi has a higher count of MD (60). The pectinal morphology of both species is nearly indistinguishable. Nevertheless, the different chela profile in our new specimens led to a negation of S. wrzecionkoi as its plausible identity. As observed in both the holotype female and the female examined herein, S. wrzecionkoi has a relatively elongated pedipalp chela. Although both male S. margerisonae and S. wrzecionkoi exhibit a quadrate chela profile, the fingers are proportionally shorter in the latter. In addition, the chela of S. wrzecionkoi appears to be somewhat more flattened. Consequently, considering both the geography and morphology, we identified our new specimens as S. margerisonae .

Tang (2023: figs. 86–88) also illustrated a chela of a presumed adult male S. songi from unknown locality. We continue to regard the specimen as that species and supplemented counts of denticles on its pedipalp movable finger in Table 2. Photos of the specimen can be found in the aforementioned supplementary PDF file available on ResearchGate.