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You talkin' to me, tough guy? I saw giant forest scorpions (genus Heterometrus) in three locations in Sri Lanka, and according to the scorpion experts on iNaturalist they were all three different species. They all looked basically like this, with slight variation in coloration and foot structures I guess. Geotagged,Heterometrus indus,Sri Lanka,Summer Click/tap to enlarge Species introCountry intro

You talkin' to me, tough guy?

I saw giant forest scorpions (genus Heterometrus) in three locations in Sri Lanka, and according to the scorpion experts on iNaturalist they were all three different species. They all looked basically like this, with slight variation in coloration and foot structures I guess.

    comments (3)

  1. View Ferdy Christant's profile
    Ferdy Christant
    Lion
    View Lion class
    Love this pose, what a fantastic beast!

    John, have some taxonomy questions if you don't mind.

    - Minor: seems this species and the previous one both share the common name "Giant forest scorpion". Advise on what to do? Give one the common name, if so, which one? Give neither the common name?

    - Major: so far we've classified scorpions like this:
    https://www.jungledragon.com/wildlife/browse/animalia/arthropoda/arachnida/scorpiones

    So....
    arthropoda/arachnida/scorpiones

    instead of....
    arthropoda/chelicerata/scorpiones

    The latter is used on your recent species. Just checking if this is deliberate or whether you're OK with me merging this in the first classification.     Posted 5 years ago
    1. View John Sullivan's profile
      John Sullivan
      Lion
      View Lion class
      For the naming question: the whole genus Heterometrus is known as "Giant Forest Scorpions". I think most of the species in that genus don't have any established common name, but the Wikipedia entries sometimes are written as if the common name is "giant forest scorpion". For this, I blame individual Wikipedia authors.

      For the taxonomy question, the import from Wikipedia resulted in different class names for the different species. H. swammerdami is listed on Wikipedia as class Arachnida, but H. indus is listed on Wikipedia as class Chelicerata. So I blame the individual Wikipedia authors for that inconsistency. H. yaleensis doesn't have its own Wikipedia page, so I entered that one manually, copying from the H. indus page that I had just created. I didn't notice the Chelicerata-v-Arachnida issue at all until you mentioned it just now. I have zero opinion on the matter. Probably some people think that Chelicerata should be a class and other people think it should be a subphylum. I definitely agree that JungleDragon should choose one or the other and be consistent, but I don't know anything about the arguments for either, so sticking with the tried-and-true Arachnida seems like an excellent choice.       Posted 5 years ago
      1. View Ferdy Christant's profile
        Ferdy Christant
        Lion
        View Lion class
        The answer I was hoping for :) Merged the 3 new species into the existing classification. You bumped it from 17 to 21 species, a very nice improvement!

        My understanding is that for Wikipedia it is kind of hard to be fully consistent. In the end, authors there are writing unstructured text, not data-driven texts, despite them having a template system.         Posted 5 years ago

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The Heterometrus indus

''Heterometrus indus'', the giant forest scorpion, is a species of scorpions belonging to the family Scorpionidae. It is found only in India and Sri Lanka. It is known to as a fierce carnivorous arthropod for small animals.

Info 1 0
Similar species: Scorpions
Species identified by John Sullivan
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By John Sullivan

All rights reserved
Uploaded Sep 30, 2019. Captured Aug 8, 2019 11:55 in Matale - Illukkumbura - Pallegama - Giradurukotte Road, Laggala, Sri Lanka.
country flag of Sri Lanka Explore Sri Lanka 1,597 544 0
  • PENTAX K-3 II
  • f/13.0
  • 1/40s
  • ISO800
  • 100mm
Captured in the summer. More summer photos.