A historical approach to scorpion studies with special reference to the 20 th and 21st centuries
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A historical approach to scorpion studies with special reference to the 20th and 21st centuries Wilson R Lourenço
Abstract This work provides historical context about scorpion studies from the end of the 19th century to the present day. The content is mainly addressed to non-zoologists, working in research fields that embrace scorpion biology, notably to those working with venoms and toxins. The historical aspects described include academic professional scholars who worked on scorpion classification and general distribution patterns; and to a lesser extent, on studies of ecology and natural history. The aim is not to provide an exhaustive description of all scholars who in one way or another became involved with scorpions, but rather of those who greatly contributed during a given period to the research of these organisms. No critical analysis of the work of previous researchers is undertaken, but some comments are proposed to bring clarification on ‘who’s who’. Since a global consensus in relation to classification and/or distribution patterns has not been reached among modern experts, these different approaches are also presented without judgment. Consequently, distinct approaches remain open for discussion. Keywords: Scorpion studies, Historical approach, 20th century, 21st century, Taxonomy, Biology
Introduction From the very beginning of this article one question may be asked: Why limit the historical description to the period from the final years of the 19th century through the present? Two main reasons may justify this selected period. First, the end of the 19th century marked the beginning of the decline of the ‘golden age’ of scorpion studies and equally saw the publication of the first global monograph about scorpions, Das Tierreich by Kraepelin [1]. Second, this period also corresponds to the emergence of interest in the venom of scorpions and was marked by the beginning of antivenom therapy [2,3]. Since this article is primarily addressed to nonzoologists, especially those working on scorpion venoms and toxins, the choice of this period seems relevant. The monograph published by Kraepelin [1] was the first complete survey of the world’s scorpion fauna. Prior to this contribution, other authors attempted to synthesize a compendium of all the known fauna, such as Koch [4] who cited four families and 11 genera, and Peters [5] who listed four families and 19 genera. Part of the classification by Kraepelin in Das Tierreich [1], which
included six families and 64 genera, remained almost unchanged for several decades. The basic idea in this article is to bring some historical information about the activities of academic-professional scholars who worked on scorpion classification and biogeography and to a lesser extent the biology and ecology of scorpions from the end of the 19th century to the present day. However, no attempt has been made to bring an exhaustive description of all scholars who in one way or another became involved in scorpion research. Comments are limited to those whose
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