Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep 20:27:e20210012.
doi: 10.1590/1678-9199-JVATITD-2021-0012. eCollection 2021.

Scorpion species of medical importance in the Brazilian Amazon: a review to identify knowledge gaps

Jonas Gama Martins  1 , Gabrielle Cristina Santos  2 , Rudi Emerson de Lima Procópio  3 , Eliane Candiani Arantes  2 , Karla de Castro Figueiredo Bordon  2
Affiliations

Scorpion species of medical importance in the Brazilian Amazon: a review to identify knowledge gaps

Jonas Gama Martins et al. J Venom Anim Toxins Incl Trop Dis. .

Abstract

Scorpionism is a relevant medical condition in Brazil. It is responsible for most accidents involving venomous animals in the country, which leads to severe symptoms that can evolve to death. In recent years, an increase of almost 50% in the incidence of scorpionism has been observed in the Northern Region, where the highest severity of envenoming has been notified since the beginning of the 21st century. This review aims to provide an in-depth assessment of public data and reports on symptoms and epidemiology of envenoming, ecological aspects of scorpions, and characterization of venoms and toxins to access the gaps that need to be filled in the knowledge of the scorpion species of medical importance from the Brazilian Amazon. A systematic search using the string words "Amazon" and "scorpion" was performed on 11 databases. No restriction on date, language or status of the publication was applied. Reports not related to the Brazilian Amazon were excluded. Therefore, 88 studies remained. It is shown that populations of scorpions of medical importance, even of the same species, may present significant toxic variations peculiar to some regions in the Brazilian Amazon, and commercial scorpion antivenoms were not able to shorten the intensity and duration of neurological manifestations in patients stung by T. silvestris, T. apiacas or T. obscurus. It is also highlighted that the toxins responsible for triggering these alterations have not been elucidated yet and this is a fruitful field for the development of more efficient antivenoms. Furthermore, the geographic distribution of scorpions of the genus Tityus in the Brazilian Amazon was revised and updated. The cumulative and detailed information provided in this review may help physicians and scientists interested in scorpionism in the Brazilian Amazon.

Keywords: Arboreal scorpions; Brazilian Amazon; Brotheas amazonicus; Endemic scorpions; Tityus apiacas; Tityus metuendeus; Tityus obscurus; Tityus silvestris; Tityus strandi; Venom.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. PRISMA flowchart showing the total number of records identified and filtered at each stage of the selection process obtained from the literature search of a systematic review on Amazonian scorpions.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Places where scorpion envenoming are more likely to occur in the Brazilian Amazon. (A) Forest leaf litter. (B) Amazon canopy. (C) Arecaceae trunks. During the harvesting and handling of fruits, such as (D) Bactris spp. and (E) Astrocaryum spp. (F) Floodable forests (known as igapó and várzea in Brazil). (G) Houses in rural and urban areas. Figure by Nícolas da Silva Garcia.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Scorpion species of the Brazilian Amazon region: (A) Brotheas amazonicus; (B) Tityus apiacas; (C) Tityus metuendus; (D) Tityus obscurus (photo by Pedro P. O. Pardal, reprinted with permission); (E) Tityus silvestris (photo by Bruno R. R. Almeida, reprinted with permission); (F) Tityus strandi. Scale bar (A-G) = 1 cm.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Ontogenetic development of T. metuendus. (A) A 3-day old newborn (red circle). (B, C) Juveniles of 20 and 75 days old. (D, E) Adults aged between 390 and 515 days. (F) Male and female adults of undetermined age. T. metuendus adults are responsible for many cases of envenoming in the Brazilian Amazon. Photos of panels A, B and F by Francisco José Ramos Prestes, reprinted with permission.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Prendini L, Wheeler WC. Scorpion higher phylogeny and classification, taxonomic anarchy, and standards for peer review in online publishing. Cladistics. 2005;21(5):446–494. - PubMed
    1. Rein JO. The scorpion files. 2021. [2021 Jan 22]. Available from: http://www.ntnu.no/ub/scorpion-files.
    1. Mullen GR, Sissom WD. In: Medical and veterinary entomology. 3rd. Mullen GR, Durden LA, editors. London: Elsevier; 2019. Scorpions (Scorpiones) pp. 489–504.
    1. Tropea G, Onnis C. A remarkable discovery of a new scorpion genus and species from Sardinia (Scorpiones: Chactoidea: Belisariidae) Arachnida. 2020;26:3–25.
    1. Santibanez-Lopez CE, Ojanguren-Affilastro AA, Sharma PP. Another one bites the dust: taxonomic sampling of a key genus in phylogenomic datasets reveals more non-monophyletic groups in traditional scorpion classification. Invert Syst. 2020;34(2):133–143.

LinkOut - more resources