Parabuthus schlechteri (Namibia)

[fusion121]

there are indeed no Androctonus species in SA, but these are two Parabuthus sp and not all parabuthus have hirsute metasoma's.....

The specimen also lacks the dorsal stridulatory region (as far as I can see from those pictures). The only Parabuthus sp. that lacks this is P. distridor whose range also does not extend to Namibia.

If you could take high detailed shots of the pedipalps, chela and metasoma you might be more lucky with an ID.

 

[Hannes]

I'm sure the 2nd one is P.granulatus which is very common in that area(also found in diferent colour forms)

 

[Hannes]

Here is a nice pic of P.granulatus.
http://www.ub.ntnu.no/scorpion-files/p_granulatus4.jpg

 

[Kugellager]

You guys should talk to Johnathan Leeming if you don't already know of him. He is your local (SA) scorpion expert and should be able to positively ID the scorpions you have...Get his book too (The Scorpions of Southern Africa)...excellent book.

http://www.scorpions.co.za/

Here is the AB review thread on his book.

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=13604

John
];')

 

[Ice Cold Milk]

Ya i think he might be the guy the one specimen is being sent to (Jonathan Leeming). Aside from that, Urizen says his friend's friend's father's ex-college-roommate's son is J. Leeming...so we'll see about gettin in touch with him that way. And ya, am getting his book delivered to me tomorrow! When i recieved these, it was Leeming's book that was used to originally identify the first specimen...wondering now that we were wrong!

Am working on posting some better upclose pics as per Fusion121's advice...
won't be long.

-=ICM=-

 

[Ice Cold Milk]

Ok, now i've taken a look at one of mine that was marked P. schlechteri adult female, and it looks nothing like the other female. The other female has hair on the metatarsus and is brown/yellow contrast in colors.

This female is 10-11cm, just as large as the yellow colored parabuthus.
Could it be the same species as the smaller ones I have that were not ID'ed?

Ok and as per Fusion121's advice, i've taken upclose pics of different areas of the scorps.
So as to conserve bandwidth, i won't post them here.
Instead visit http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v350/Ice_Cold_Milk/Scorpions/parabuthus%20ID/
the ones marked p_spec1_namibia are the small ones that i posted in my first post (app. 7cm length)
the ones marked p_spec2_namibia is of the large female that i'm speaking of at the beginning of this post (10-11cm length)
the ones marked p_spec3_namibia are obviously those big yellow and brown ones (11-12cm length)
I find myself terribly enthralled and entertained with figuring this out! thanks guys!
-=ICM=-

 

[errit]

Cool scorps. my favorite species...! My guess on the second one is P.granulatus. The most venomous in South Africa.

I definitly agree on that.
my guess would strongly be P. Granulatus
they are awesome!

 

[Ice Cold Milk]

Do you think that my scorps listed as p_spec1 and p_spec2 in my photobucket are the same species?

...huge size difference, slight color difference...
but are more similar to each other than they are to the yellow/brown ones.

 

[fusion121]

With the more detailed pictures you can clearly see the stridulatory region on all 3 of the specimens so they must all be Parabuthus

If you want a species level ID use this:
http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v32_n1/arac-032-01-0109.pdf

Otherwise its just going to be down to picture comparison which tends to result in iffy IDs

 

[Bigboy]

What sways you to granulatus and not gracilis?

 

[Urizen]

I'm meeting up with Johnathan, next week ;p he's giving a talk at morningside.

spec 3 (in your photobucket) looks highly like P.Schlechteri.

Spec 2, looks alot like P.Granulatus, except the colouring.

spec 1 has colouring to make me think P.Granulatus.

<EDIT> I'm no expert, maybe you have got hold of aliens. Just don't get stung! either way I reck it's gonna be eina!

Can I come over tommorow and have a gawk?

 

[Hannes]

Do you think that my scorps listed as p_spec1 and p_spec2 in my photobucket are the same species?

...huge size difference, slight color difference...
but are more similar to each other than they are to the yellow/brown ones.

I'm pretty sure they are the same and both look like females, they're very common in the northern cape all the way up to Alldays allong the Namibian border. The other one must be P.villosus....I've been wanting one since the day I started collecting scorpions. They are found in 3 diferent colour forms along the orange river and very common in Augrabies Falls National Park. Just I never had the chance to go and get me some....here's some pics of two different colour forms - note the carapace and hairy tail compared to yours..!
http://www.ub.ntnu.no/scorpion-files/p_villosus.jpg
http://www.ub.ntnu.no/scorpion-files/p_villosus_black2.jpg

 

[Hannes]

Ya i think he might be the guy the one specimen is being sent to (Jonathan Leeming). Aside from that, Urizen says his friend's friend's father's ex-college-roommate's son is J. Leeming...so we'll see about gettin in touch with him that way. And ya, am getting his book delivered to me tomorrow! When i recieved these, it was Leeming's book that was used to originally identify the first specimen...wondering now that we were wrong!

Am working on posting some better upclose pics as per Fusion121's advice...
won't be long.

-=ICM=-

You won't be disappointed with buying his book, it's helped me a lot especially when I just started ID'ing scorps. Just remember his book only features the most common scorps!! I have caught a few that was not featured in his book. Another thing to remember is that there is only one pic of each scorp in the book and you do not know what age they are and also your scorps could have been caught in a different area and could look allot different than the one in the book.