''Akrav israchanani'' () is an extinct
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of
scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...
s from the
Ayalon Cave in
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
.
[Levy, 2007 "The first troglobite scorpion from Israel and a new chactoid family (Arachnida: Scorpiones)]
/ref> It is the only species in the genus ''Akrav'' and the family Akravidae.
Description
''Akrav israchanani'' was an eyeless, brown, troglobitic
A troglobite (or, formally, troglobiont) is an animal species, or population of a species, strictly bound to underground habitats, such as caves. These are separate from species that mainly live in above-ground habitats but are also able to live u ...
scorpion of about 50mm in length first described from only 20 dry, cuticular remains of hollow carcasses.monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...
family, however this has been called into question by later researchers.[Victor Fet, Michael E. Soleglad & Sergei L. Zonstein, 2011 "The genus Akrav Levy, 2007 (Scorpiones: Akravidae) revisited]
/ref>
The name ''Akrav israchanani'' combines the Hebrew language, Hebrew word for scorpion, "akrav", with the names of the researchers who identified it, Israel Naaman and Hanan Dimentman.
Habitat and distribution
The scorpion was originally known only from the Ayalon Cave in Israel, a deep limestone cave, isolated from rainwater and the surface by a layer of chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
. The extinction
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
of the scorpion is inferred from the lack of live or recently dead specimens.
See also
*Wildlife of Israel
The wildlife of Israel includes the flora and fauna of Israel, which is extremely diverse due to the country's location between the temperate and the tropical zones, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the desert in the east. Spe ...
* Typhlocaris galilea
References
Endemic fauna of Israel
Extinct arachnids
Scorpion taxonomy
Scorpion genera
Monotypic arachnid genera
{{Paleo-scorpion-stub
Fauna of Israel