Zoosyst. Evol. 99 (1) 2023, 45-53 | DOI! 10.3897/zse.99.90875 yee BERLIN Additions to the distribution of Sudanese scorpions Manal Siyam?, Jason A. Dunlop, FrantiSek Kovarik?, Abubakr Mohammad*° University of Khartoum, Faculty of Science, Sudan Natural History Museum, Al-Jamaa Avenue, P.O Box 321, Khartoum, Sudan Museum fiir Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, Invalidenstrafe 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany Charles University, Department of Zoology, Vinicna 7, CZ-128 44 Praha 2, Czech Republic Independent researcher, Natural Heritage, Sudan Current address: Flat 4, 19 Byram Street, Huddersfield, HDI IDR, UK oF WN PF https://zoobank. org/B9F5B3C5-9F 01-4D66-B542-2850719DEBEA Corresponding author: Jason A. Dunlop (jason.dunlop@mfn.berlin) Academic editor: Danilo Harms # Received 26 July 2022 Accepted 25 November 2022 @ Published 6 January 2023 Abstract Six species of scorpion (Arachnida: Scorpiones) are documented from eighteen localities in seven different states within the Republic of the Sudan. Combining this new data with historical records in the Sudan Natural History Museum and the published literature enables the first provisional distribution maps for Sudanese scorpions. New state records could be added for three medically signif- icant species: Androctonus amoreuxi (Audouin, 1826) from Khartoum, North Kordofan and North Darfur, Leiurus quinquestriatus (Ehrenberg, 1829) from Kassala, River Nile, White Nile and North Darfur, and Parabuthus abyssinicus (Pocock, 1901) from Kassala. Among the less venomous species, we offer new state records for Buthacus leptochelys (Ehrenberg, 1829) in White Nile State, for Compsobuthus werneri (Birula, 1908) in North Kordofan, White Nile and Kassala States and for Orthochirus olivaceus (Karsch, 1881) in River Nile, Northern and Kassala States. Further information about the taxonomy, distribution and toxicity of Sudanese scorpions is presented. Key Words distribution, East Africa, identification, public health, Scorpiones Introduction Scorpions are a familiar group of arachnids found in warmer regions of the world, including throughout Af- rica. The Republic of Sudan covers a huge area of east- ern Africa and is of particular biogeographical interest for hosting a range of environments (Fig. 1), including deserts in the north and west, coastal regions in the east, the Nile valley, and subtropical savannahs to the south. Despite this size and diversity of habitats, Sudan’s scor- pion fauna remains rather poorly known. Notable early accounts include Hirst (191la, b), Werner (1911), King (1925) and Borelli (1929). These, and other, records from the published literature were summarised by Dunlop et al. (2018), who listed a total of seventeen species. A further species was added by Kovarik et al. (2020) and a synonym was recognised by Kovarik and Lowe (2022). Here, we aim to expand this baseline data through novel records based on newly collected scorpions belonging to six different species (Fig. 2). We also include an updated summary (Table 1) of species and the states they occur in, as well as the first distribution maps for Sudanese scorpi- ons (Fig. 3), again focussing on the six species for which we have recent and accurate locality data. Four Sudanese scorpion species are thought to be medically significant (see Discussion) and several clinical studies (e.g. Ali and Ali 2015) have reported scorpion stings in this country. Our data may thus be relevant for future public health initiatives, and problems with scorpion envenomation in Sudan are briefly reviewed. Copyright Siyam, M. et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 46 Material and methods Literature data for Sudanese scorpions was taken from Dunlop et al. (2018), and references therein. We also drew on historical collections held in the Sudan Natural History Museum of the Faculty of Science, University of Khartoum, Khartoum (SNHMK). This material was assembled by several people, mostly from the 1920s through to the 1960s. Unfortunately, the historical data is often associated only with abbreviations for the name of the collector. While some can be inferred based on the literature, for example “D.J.L. (1953)” is almost certainly David J. Lewis who worked in Khartoum in the 1950s, other historical collectors could not be identified unequiv- ocally at this stage and are listed below in the verbatim form from the labels, 1.e.: W.C. (1927), R.G.A. (1928), A.E. (1953), M.M.I. (1938), R.C. (1951), A.K.A. (1942), N.M.G. (1947), H.J.M. (1951), and A.M.E. (1952/1960). From the 1990s there is also museum material from J. Nasr Eldin Taj. Another limiting factor here is that the historical mu- seum data only covers five of Sudan’s eighteen states, namely Khartoum, River Nile, Northern, North Kordo- fan and North Darfur. To supplement this, new scorpi- on material was collected by the first (MS) and fourth authors (AM) from a total of eighteen localities across seven states: Northern State (Dongola, Wadi Halfa, Wadi El-Ga’ab, Merawi, Bayood Desert, El-Madeqeen), River Nile State (Atbara, El-Mosawarat, El-Manaseer, Mugrat Island), Kassala (Khashm El-Gerba, Kassala), Khartoum a Figure 1. Typical natural habitats for scorpion species in the Republic of Sudan. a. Ab-dareesh (White Nile State); b. Bayood Des- Siyam, M. et al.: Sudanese scorpions State (Khartoum, Omdorman), North Kordofan State (EI- Obied), White Nile State (Kosti, Ab-Dareesh) and Sennar State (Dinder National Park). Scorpions were detected in the field using ultraviolet detection torches at night, or by searching under surface debris and rocks during the day. Typical habitats/collecting sites for several species are shown in Fig. 1, habitus images of those species for which we have new distribution data in Fig. 2 and the geographical maps were created using ArcMap (version 10.4.1) and are shown in Fig. 3. Voucher specimens were preserved in 80% ethanol and deposited either in the Sudan Natural History Muse- um (SNHMK) and/or the Museum fiir Naturkunde Berlin (MfN) under its traditional acronym ZMB (for “Zoolo- gisches Museum Berlin’). Scorpions were initially iden- tified to genus level using available keys, with species identifications mostly confirmed by FK drawing on ex- tensive comparative studies of scorpions from northern and eastern Africa (e.g. Kovarik et al. 2016, 2020). Results Of the seventeen scorpion species currently known from the Republic of the Sudan (Dunlop et al. 2018; Kovarik et al. 2020), fifteen belong to the family Buthidae. These are Androctonus amoreuxi (Audouin, 1826), A. austra- lis (Linneaus, 1758), Buthacus leptochelys (Ehrenberg, 1829), Buthus brignolii Lourengo, 2003, B. duprei Rossi & Tropea, 2016a, B. karoraensis Rossi & Tropea, 2016b, ert (Northern State); ec. Khashm El-Gerba (Kassala State); d. Jebel Awliya (Khartoum State); e. El-Obeid (North Kordofan State). zse.pensoft.net Zoosyst. Evol. 99 (1) 2023, 45-53 47 Table 1. The seventeen species of scorpion currently known from the Republic of Sudan, cross referenced to the eighteen states, listed approximately from north to south: Northern (NS), River Nile (RNS), Red Sea (RSS), Khartoum (KHS) Kassala (KS), Gezira (GS), North Darfur (NDS), West Darfur (WDS), Central Darfur (CDS), South Darfur (SDS), East Darfur (EDS), North Kordofan (NKS), West Kordofan (WKS), South Kordofan (SKS), White Nile (WNS), Sennar (SS), Al Quadarif (AQS), and Blue Nile (BNS). NS RNS RSS KHS KS GS NDS WDS CDS SDS EDS NKS WKS SKS WNS SS _ AQS BNS BUTHIDAE . amoreuxi J . australis J . leptochelys J . brignolii duprei . Karoraensis . werneri Vy . seicherti H. minax H. niloticus L. quinquestriatus N. andersoni O. olivaceus J Pa. hunteri Pa. abyssinicus V J QOOw,DDDYDS ete ito welt a