Mesobuthus vesiculatus (Pocock, 1899)

Vignoli, Valerio, Kovařík, František & Crucitti, Pierangelo, 2003, Scorpiofauna of Kashan (Esfahan Province, Iran) (Arachnida: Scorpiones), Euscorpius 9, pp. 1-7 : 3-5

Mesobuthus vesiculatus (Pocock, 1899)

Specimens. 1 adult ♀, No. 10 ( FKCP) , 1 adult ♂, No. 11 ( FKCP), Kashan city, 11 August 2000 ; 1 adult ♀, No. 22, Main Abad, 11 August 2000; leg. V. Vignoli & P. Crucitti .

Comments. Scorpions of medium size (total length: No. 10, 56 mm; 11, 46 mm; 22, 51 mm). The type locality of this species (“Astracan”, Iran) is not clear (Fet & Lowe, 2000). Apart from the types, there are only specimens identified by Whittick as Buthus gabrielis Werner, 1929 , a junior synonym of M. vesiculatus . Fet & Lowe (2000: 181) listed specimens from Teheran and Comments. Androctonus amoreuxi baluchicus (Pocock, 1900) listed for the region by Kovarík (1997: 39) was an immature specimen that subsequently turned out to be an atypically colored Androctonus crassicauda . Deghani et al. (1998) listed for the region also Orthochirus scrobiculosus (Grube, 1873) . This is probably a case of mistaken identity as well, as the record appears to concern a hitherto undescribed species of Orthochirus . The second author (FK) is revising this genus and his work indicates several new species from Iran.

Isfahan (Esfahan). Kashan is located between these two towns.

These specimens were compared by one of us ( FK) with the paratype (No. 1893.10.29.6) of Mesobuthus vesiculatus from the Natural History Museum, London. The species is well characterized by its inflated telson and a very short aculeus .