Revision of the genus Lisposoma Lawrence, 1928 (Scorpiones : bothriuridae)

The endemic Namibian genus Lisposoma Lawrence, 1928, comprising two represents one of two basal African genera in the Gondwanan family Bothriuridae Simon, 1880. All other, more derived genera of Bothriuridae occur in South America, India and Australia. Although the phylogenetic position of Lisposoma has become an increasingly contentious subject, three cladistic analyses based on morphological data have confirmed that it is a basal bothriurid. In view of those findings, the present contribution serves to revise the generic diagnosis of Lisposonia, last revised by Lamoral (1979), who placed the genus in the Scorpionidae Latreille, 1802 and constructed his diagnosis accordingly. A considerable number of new specimens, many representing new records for the two species of Lisposoma, have also accumulated since Lamoral's (1979) revision. These new data justify the provision of revised diagnoses and descriptions for the two species, together with a key to their identification, brief summaries of their ecology and conservation status, and a distribution map plotting all known locality records.