Buthus

Buthus
Buthus occitanus (Amoreux, 1789)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Scorpiones
Family:	Buthidae
Genus:	Buthus Leach, 1815
Type species
Scorpio occitanus Amoreux, 1789
Diversity
At least 35 species

Buthus is a genus of scorpion belonging and being eponymous to the family Buthidae. It is distributed widely across northern Africa, including Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, as well as the Middle East, including Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and possibly Saudi-Arabia and southern Turkey. Its European range includes the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, and Cyprus.

The genus was introduced by W.E. Leach (1815: 391). It was only the second genus of scorpion as all species known to this date were included in the sole genus Scorpio Linné, 1758. Leach found Scorpio occitanus Amoreux, 1789 to differ from the other species of Scorpio known to him by having eight eyes (two median eyes and six lateral eyes) instead of six (two median eyes and four lateral eyes). C.L. Koch (1837) expanded this concept and subdivided the scorpions in four families according to the number of their eyes. He named his second family, the "eight-eyed scorpions", Buthides. The use of the number of eyes in the classification of scorpions has been discarded since, however the name Buthidae is still in use for the most diverse family of scorpions.

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