Selected to survive and kill: Tityus serrulatus, the Brazilian yellow scorpion

Annually, more than 1.2 million scorpion stings and more than 3,000 deaths occur worldwide. Tityus serrulatus Lutz and Mello, 1922 (Scorpiones, Buthidae) is the most medically relevant species in Brazil where it is spreading rapidly and causing over 90,000 cases of envenomation yearly. We monitored...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-04, Vol.14 (4), p.e0214075-e0214075
Main Authors: Pimenta, Ricardo José Gonzaga, Brandão-Dias, Pedro Ferreira Pinto, Leal, Hortênsia Gomes, Carmo, Anderson Oliveira do, Oliveira-Mendes, Bárbara Bruna Ribeiro de, Chávez-Olórtegui, Carlos, Kalapothakis, Evanguedes
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animals
Biology and Life Sciences
Bites (Injuries)
Brazil
Control
Dietary restrictions
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Experiments
Food
Food Deprivation - physiology
Health aspects
Laboratories
Medicine and Health Sciences
Methods
Parasitic diseases
Patient outcomes
People and places
Pesticides
Physical Sciences
Reproduction - physiology
Research and Analysis Methods
Scorpion Stings
Scorpion Venoms
Scorpions
Scorpions - physiology
Social Sciences
Starvation
Stings
Tityus serrulatus
Venom
Water
Water deprivation
Water Deprivation - physiology
Water resistance
Weight reduction
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Annually, more than 1.2 million scorpion stings and more than 3,000 deaths occur worldwide. Tityus serrulatus Lutz and Mello, 1922 (Scorpiones, Buthidae) is the most medically relevant species in Brazil where it is spreading rapidly and causing over 90,000 cases of envenomation yearly. We monitored T. serrulatus longevity and ability to reproduce under conditions of food and/or water deprivation. We found that T. serrulatus is highly tolerant to food deprivation, with individuals enduring up to 400 days without food. On the other hand, access to water played a pivotal role in T. serrulatus survival. Food and water deprived scorpions showed weight reduction. Reproduction occurred throughout the year for food-deprived scorpions and controls, but not in the water-deprived groups. Remarkably, food-deprived animals were able to give birth after 209 days of starvation. Tityus serrulatus resistance to food and water deprivation is likely to be an additional factor underlying this species' geographic expansion and the difficulties encountered in controlling it.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0214075