Epistemic renovation of scorpiology in China

This study constitutes a censorious methodological and epistemological monograph of scorpiology in China, covering the following: Scorpiops pococki Zhu, Qi & Lourenço, 2005 nomen dubium = Scorpiops langxian Zhu, Qi & Lourenço, 2005 nomen dubium = Scorpiops tibetanus Hirst, 1911 syn. n.; formal exclusion of S. hardwickii (Gervais, 1843) and S. petersii Pocock, 1893 from the scorpiofauna of China; preliminary ecological niche modeling of the S. tibetanus clade; characterization of S. aff. ingens sensu Tang, 2026 and S. tibetanus from Lhasa, Tibet (exploratory; most current evidence suggests conspecificity), with illustrated intraspecific variation of hemispermatophore morphology; first report of ectoparasitic mites in Tibetan Scorpiops (S. aff. ingens, S. luridus Zhu et al., 2005, S. songi Di & Qiao, 2020, S. tibetanus); description of S. aff. xui sensu Tang, 2026 from Lincang, Yunnan, alongside a new R package, ‘tricon’, for visualizing scorpion trichobothrial pattern using a “Direction-Aware Hierarchical Alignment (DAHA)” method; characterization of S. obluda sp. indet. Tang, 2026 nomen nudum from Mainling, Tibet; clarification on the identity of S. luridus and S. songi; fifteen new cases of anatomical anomaly (S. aff. ingens, S. aff. xui, S. atomatus (Qi et al., 2005), S. bhutanensis Tikader & Bastawade, 1983, S. luridus, S. songi); account of unresolved issues in Chinese scorpion taxonomy. Chaerilus tessellatus Qi, Zhu & Lourenço, 2005 and Reddyanus wenjieae Huang, Liu & Di, 2025 are treated as nomina dubia. Theoretical discussions on subspecies and quantifications of scorpion cuticle granulation and telson length are provided.