New Species30 Jan 2024

A New Scorpion with Prakrit Jain

How many nature enthusiasts can relate to this scenario: you’re watching the landscape go by as you drive, and suddenly you see an area that could be favorable habitat for your target species. Stop the car! That’s what Prakrit Jain did, and it helped him and his coauthors describe a new species of Paruroctonus scorpion from the San Joaquin Valley. So much makes this scorpion interesting, from the unique and at-risk habitat it occupies to the fascinating story of its description. Why describe new species? Prakrit says it best: “Because if this scorpion can get conservation attention then it doesn’t just save the scorpion it saves everything that lives alongside it, and that might be thousands of different species.”

Prakrit Jain’s paper “A new species of alkali-sink Paruroctonus Werner, 1934 (Scorpiones, Vaejovidae) from California’s San Joaquin Valley” is in issue 1185 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1185.103574

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Prakrit Jain - Transcript

New Species: Paruroctonus tulare

Episode image courtesy of Prakrit Jain

Follow Prakrit on Instagram: @bothrops_et_al

Connect with Prakrit on iNaturalist: @prakrit

iNaturalist records of this new species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/192661164

News coverage of this species description:

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/new-species-scorpion-california-san-joaquin-18537552.php

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/47542/20231208/new-scorpion-sting-getting-pricked-cactus-discovered-california-desert.htm

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12837863/deadly-species-eight-legs-scalloped-pincers-California.html

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Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

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