First Record of Autotomy in the Neotropical Scorpion Ananteris cussinii Borelli, 1910 in Trinidad, W.I.

Abstract

Autotomy is the behaviour whereby an animal voluntarily sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as a self-defence mechanism, to elude a predator’s grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allow escape. As it pertains to scorpions, autotomy has only been reported to occur in the neotropical buthid Genus Ananteris Thorell, 1981. The number of species of this genus capable of performing metasomal autotomy has therefore not been exhausted and this paper further adds to this, as it serves as a first report of metasomal autonomy occurring in yet another species, Ananteris cussinii Borelli 1910.