''Leiurus'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

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 ...

of the family

Buthidae The Buthidae are the largest family of scorpions, containing about 100 genera and 1339 species as of 2022. A few very large genera ('' Ananteris'', '' Centruroides'', '' Compsobuthus'', or '' Tityus'') are known, but a high number of species-poor ...

. The most common

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), ...

, ''L. quinquestriatus'', is also known under the

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

Deathstalker The deathstalker (''Leiurus quinquestriatus'') is a species of scorpion, a member of the family (biology), family Buthidae. It is also known as the Palestine yellow scorpion, Omdurman scorpion, and Naqab desert scorpion, as well as by many oth ...

. It is distributed widely across

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, including the western and southern

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

and southeastern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. At least one

occurs in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

(northern

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

Taxonomy

The genus was introduced in 1828 by C.G. Ehrenberg (in Hemprich & Ehrenberg 1828), originally as a

subgenus In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

of the genus ''

Androctonus Fattail scorpion or fat-tailed scorpion is the common name given to scorpions of the genus ''Androctonus'', one of the most dangerous groups of scorpion species in the world.Hendrixson, B. E. 2006. Buthid scorpions of Saudi Arabia, with notes ...

''. It was finally elevated to genus rank by M. Vachon in 1949. The genus was long considered to be

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 ...

, containing a single species, ''L. quinquestriatus'', but research since 2002 has shown that there are indeed several species.

Diversity

Currently twenty species are recognized within this genus. *'' Leiurus abdullahbayrami'' Yagmur, Koc & Kunt, 2009 *'' Leiurus aegyptiacus'' Lourenço & El-Hennawy, 2021 *'' Leiurus arabicus'' Lowe, Yagmur & Kovarik, 2014 *'' Leiurus ater'' Lourenço, 2019 *'' Leiurus brachycentrus'' Ehrenberg, 1829 *'' Leiurus dekeyseri'' Lourenço, 2020 *'' Leiurus gubanensis'' Kovarik & Lowe, 2020 *'' Leiurus haenggii'' Lowe, Yagmur & Kovarik, 2014 *'' Leiurus heberti'' Lowe, Yagmur & Kovarik, 2014 *'' Leiurus hebraeus'' Lowe, Yagmur & Kovaric, 2014 *'' Leiurus hoggarensis'' Lourenço, Kourim & Sadine, 2018 *'' Leiurus kuwaiti'' Lourenço, 2020 *'' Leiurus jordanensis'' Lourenço, Modry & Amr, 2002 *'' Leiurus macroctenus'' Lowe, Yagmur & Kovarik, 2014 *'' Leiurus maculatus'' Lourenço, 2022 *'' Leiurus nigellus'' Abu Afifeh, Aloufi & Al-Saraireh 2023 *'' Leiurus nigerianus'' Lourenço, 2021 *''

Leiurus quinquestriatus The deathstalker (''Leiurus quinquestriatus'') is a species of scorpion, a member of the family Buthidae. It is also known as the Palestine yellow scorpion, Omdurman scorpion, and Naqab desert scorpion, as well as by many other colloquial name ...

'' (Ehrenberg, 1828) (

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

) *'' Leiurus saharicus'' Lourenço, 2020 *'' Leiurus savanicola'' Lourenço, Qi & Cloudsley-Thompson, 2006Qi, J., Lourenço, W.R., & Cloudsley-Thompson, J. (2006). The African species of the genus "Leiurus Ehrenberg", 1828 (Scorpiones: Buthidae) with the description of a new species. *'' Leiurus somalicus'' Lourenço, & Rossi, 2016 *'' Leiurus hadb'' Al-Qahtni, Al-Salem, Alqahtani & Badry, 2023

General characteristics

Members of ''Leiurus'' are generally moderately sized scorpions that show a typical buthid habitus with gracile

pedipalp Pedipalps (commonly shortened to palps or palpi) are the secondary pair of forward appendages among Chelicerata, chelicerates – a group of arthropods including spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. The pedipalps are lateral to ...

chelae A chela ()also called a claw, nipper, or pinceris a pincer-shaped organ at the end of certain limbs of some arthropods. The name comes from Ancient Greek , through Neo-Latin '. The plural form is chelae. Legs bearing a chela are called chelipeds ...

and a slender

metasoma The metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma (biology), tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory sy ...

. The vesicle is bulbous and proportionally large in some species. The

cephalothorax The cephalothorax, also called prosoma in some groups, is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. (The terms ''prosoma'' and ''opisthosoma'' are equivalent to ''cepha ...

and

mesosoma The mesosoma is the middle part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the metasoma. It bears the legs, and, in the case of winged insects, the wings. Wasps, bees and a ...

shows distinct granulation. Characteristically the

tergites A ''tergum'' (Latin for "the back"; : ''terga'', associated adjective tergal) is the dorsal ('upper') portion of an arthropod segment other than the head. The anterior edge is called the 'base' and posterior edge is called the 'apex' or 'margin'. ...

of the mesosoma bear five distinct, longitudinal carinae (ridges). The base color is generally yellow with brown to blackish areas extending over various parts of the animal, depending on species.

Toxicity

The venom of ''L. quinquestriatus'' is among the most potent scorpion

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. They occur especially as proteins, often conjugated. The term was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849–1919), derived ...

s. It severely affects the

cardiac The heart is a muscular organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissu ...

and

pulmonary The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in many animals, including humans. In mammals and most other tetrapods, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart. Their function in the respiratory syste ...

systems.

Human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

fatalities, often children, have been confirmed by clinical reports. The

median lethal dose In toxicology, the median lethal dose, LD50 (abbreviation for " lethal dose, 50%"), LC50 (lethal concentration, 50%) or LCt50 is a toxic unit that measures the lethal dose of a given substance. The value of LD50 for a substance is the dose re ...

of venom (LD₅₀) for this species was measured at 0.16 - 0.50 mg/kg_mice.
The toxicity of the other species is also potentially high to life-threatening, but reliable data are currently not available.

Habitat

Most species live in

semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a aridity, dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below Evapotranspiration#Potential evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration, but not as l ...

arid Aridity is the condition of geographical regions which make up approximately 43% of total global available land area, characterized by low annual precipitation, increased temperatures, and limited water availability.Perez-Aguilar, L. Y., Plata ...

regions, including the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

and Arabian deserts. At least one species occurs in

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

environment. Sparsely vegetated and sandy or rocky substrates are preferred. The scorpions live in shallow burrows in sand or beneath rocks.

In captivity

Members of the genus ''Leiurus'' are often bred in captivity and traded. Due to their extreme toxicity, keeping these species is strictly recommended to only very experienced and/or professionally trained people.

References

{{Authority control Buthidae Scorpion genera Scorpions of Africa Taxa named by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg