Introductions of the Scorpions Centruroides vittatus 



(Say) and C. hentzi (Banks) into North Carolina, with 



Records of the Indigenous Scorpion, 



Vaejovis carolinianus (Beauvois) 

 (Scorpionida: Buthidae, Vaejovidae) 



Rowland M. Shelley 



North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, P. O. Box 29555, 



Raleigh, North Carolina 27626-0555 



ABSTRACT — The scorpions Centruroides vittatus (Say) and 

 C. hentzi (Banks), with subaculear tubercles on their telsons, 

 have been accidentally imported into piedmont and coastal North 

 Carolina and may become established in parts of these regions. 

 They are distinguished by the larger size of C. vittatus and by 

 the following differences in pigmentation: the presence of a darkly 

 pigmented, inverted triangular patch on the cephalothorax of C. 

 vittatus, as opposed to light mottled brownish coloration in C. 

 hentzi, and by the reticulated brown pigmentation on the dorsal 

 surfaces of the chelicerae of C. hentzi, in contrast to the unpigmented 

 condition in C. vittatus. The native scorpion, Vaejovis carolinianus 

 (Beauvois), which lacks the subaculear tubercle, occurs in southwestern 

 border counties adjoining South Carolina and Georgia and has 

 penetrated the western fringe of the State, occurring just inside 

 the Tennessee state line in the French Broad and Little Tennessee 

 river valleys. It is also recorded from Yancey, Haywood, Mecklenburg, 

 Iredell, Guilford, Wake, and Columbus counties, all probably representing 

 accidental human importations. A key, descriptive drawings, and 

 a map of occurrences are presented. 



In April 1991, I was notified that employees in a north Raleigh 

 office building had encountered and trapped a scorpion in a hallway. 

 Vaejovis 1 carolinianus (Beauvois) (family Vaejovidae), occurring 

 in southwestern border counties adjoining South Carolina and Georgia, 

 some 208 mi (333 km) from Raleigh (Shelley 1975a, b), is the only 

 scorpion native to North Carolina, so I was surprised to find 

 that they had a specimen of Centruroides vittatus (Say) (family 

 Buthidae), a species occurring in the southcentral and southwestern 

 United States and the adjacent states in northern Mexico (Stahnke and 

 Calos 1977). This individual had been unknowingly transported to 

 North Carolina in a shipment of mesquite lumber for an adjoining 



1 Francke (1977) showed that Vaejovis and Vaejovidae, with an "a", are the correct 

 spellings for the genus and family, respectively, as opposed to the previous 

 orthography without this vowel. 



Brimleyana 21:45-55, December 1994 45 



