| Abstrakt: |
Our work is a recent exploration of North-west of Algeria and a preliminary study on the scorpion fauna of Sidi Bel Abbes region. From different biotopes (Steppe, Forest, and Matorral) and during 12 months of 2019, we sampled 90 specimens of scorpions belonging to 10 species under 3 genera distributed in 2 families. The family Buthidae is represented by Androctonus aeneas (relative abundance "RA"= 2.22%), Buthus boussaadi (RA= 14.44%), Buthus oudjanii (RA= 3.33%), Buthus paris (RA= 16.67%), Buthus pusillus (RA= 3.33%), Buthus tunetanus (RA= 38.89%), and a new Buthus species (RA= 6.67%). The family Scorpionidae is represented by Scorpio maurus (RA= 8.89%), Scorpio maurus trarasensis (RA= 2.22%), and Scorpio punicus (RA= 3.33%). Among the important results in this work is a new record of Moroccan scorpion B. oudjanii Lourenço, 2017 in Algeria and reporting the presence of two scorpion species B. 88 boussaadi and B. pusillus known from the North-east of Algeria. The Shannon's index (H' = 2.67 bits) indicates that Sidi Bel Abbes region has a high level of scorpion diversity and the value of evenness (E = 0.80) reflects the high equilibrium between the effectiveness of sampled species. There is a close affinity between some species and their biotopes such as A. aeneas has an affinity to herbaceous habitats, B. boussaadi was closely attached to medium altitude (500-800 m) and B. oudjanii probably prefers the forest with Mediterranean climate, high altitudes (1600 m) and with common forest species such as Quercus ilex and Pistacia lentiscus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
