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2009: 2008: 2007: 2006: 2005: 2004: 2002: | Mexico (Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas) 2006 14–25 August, 2006): Partially funded by the NSF REVSYS grant. This trip was also conducted by two teams. W. David Sissom drove south from Texas with Thomas Anton, Vanessa Torti, and Gary Casper, while Oscar Francke drove north with Jesus Ballesteros, Hector Montaño and Carlos Santibañez. The two teams met at the same spot where they had separated two weeks earlier after the rains flooded their campground. This time, they successfully collected a Vaejovis species close to V. tesselatus, another close to V. bilineatus, and a Diplocentrus close to D. ferrugineus. The teams then traveled into the Aramberi region, a desert area known for endemic cacti, where they expected to find a member of the Vaejovis nitidulus group, but failed to do so. Traveling west to Matehuala and the Real del Catorce region, the teams collected four unidentified species of Vaejovis belonging to different groups. They then switched back east and into San Luis Potosí. Near Villa de Allende, one team was unsuccessful in securing Vaejovis tesselatus from its type locality, while the other team collected Vaejovis mitchelli, an important species for the molecular component of the project, near Cerritos. The following night the teams collected what appears to be a new species close to Vaejovis pococki and what may be a new species close to Vaejovis mitchelli. The next day, moving north near San Jose de Las Palmas, the teams collected more than 120Vaejovis aff. bilineatus in about half-an-hour of turning rocks in desert scrub! However, collecting in an oak forest, later that afternoon, yielded nothing. That night the teams collected two species of Diplocentrus and three species of Vaejovis, including what appears to be a new species near Vaejovis intermedius. Collecting was truncated that evening by rain, and departure the next morning delayed while tents and sleeping bags dried in the sun. While waiting, Oscar Francke taught the rest of the team how to dig up Diplocentrus from their burrows. The following night, the teams camped at El Salto, south of Jaumave, Tamaulipas, and collected a Vaejovis near V. russelli (punctipalpi group) and another near V. sprousei (mexicanus group). Before the teams parted, a final effort was made to obtain Vaejovis platnicki, which was successfully collected by rolling rocks. Both teams collected further on the return leg of their trips, adding to knowledge of the geographical distributions of several scorpion species. | |
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