Scorpions at high altitudes: A new species of Scorpiops Peters, 1861 (Scorpiones: Scorpiopidae) from the Taxkorgan Reserve, Xinjiang, China.

Although scorpions have been described from China since the 19th century, it was only in the early 2000s that this fauna has seen a noticeable improvement in terms of the number and diversity of the described taxa. Some regions of China have been extensively prospected, while others remain largely unexplored. The latter is the case for the Province of Xinjiang, in the Extreme West of the country. A few contributions dealing with scorpions from this region are available, but these mainly concern representatives of the family Buthidae. In the present paper, a new species belonging to the genus Scorpiops Peters, of the family Scorpiopidae Kraepelin, is described from the Taxkorgan Natural Reserve. The description is based on one male and one female collected under stones at altitudes of 4500-4600m. To our knowledge, this is the first species ever described from the Taxkorgan Natural Reserve and may represent an endemic element within the fauna of Xinjiang Province.