A new species of Liocheles Sundevall, 1833 (Scorpiones: Hormuridae) from Similipal Tiger Reserve, Odisha, India

A new species of Liocheles Sundevall, 1833 is described based on male and female specimens collected from Similipal Tiger Reserve, Mayurbhanj district, Odisha, India. The new species can be easily distinguished from all six known congeners by combination of non-overlapping morphological characters such as carinae and granulation morphology of pedipalp and metasomal segments, median eye ratios. The discovery of Liocheles similipalensis sp. n., elevate the total number of species of the genus to seven and represent the fourth species to be described from India. The current study also highlights the need of systematic surveys along with detailed morphological and molecular studies to uncover true diversity and distribution of the genus, and clarity on published distributional records of L. nigripes (Pocock, 1897) and/or L. australasiae (Fabricus, 1775) which are likely to be part of species complexes.