Abstract

The endemic southern African buthid genus Pseudolychas Kraepelin, 1911 is revised for the first time after an examination of the type material and a large number of additional specimens in southern African, European, and American collections. Three species are considered valid: Pseudolychas pegleri (Purcell, 1901), P. ochraceus (Hirst, 1911), and P. transvaalicus Lawrence, 1961. Pseudolychas pegleri nigrimanus Kraepelin, 1911 and P. multicarinatus Hewitt, 1925 (long regarded as P. pegleri multicarinatus) are newly synonymized with P. pegleri. The identity of P. ochraceus is verified by examination of the holotype. Many specimens identified as P. pegleri by previous authors are actually conspecific with P. ochraceus. Specimens of P. pegleri have also been misidentified as P. ochraceus. Revised diagnoses and descriptions are provided for the species of Pseudolychas, together with a key to their identification, brief summaries of their ecology and conservation status, and a distribution map plotting all known locality records. Pseudolychas ochraceus is suggested to be a parthenogenetic species. A phylogenetic analysis, based on 21 morphological characters and using exemplar species of eight buthid genera as outgroup taxa, confirms the monophyly of Pseudolychas and its placement as the sister group of a larger monophyletic group including Grosphus Simon, 1888, Parabuthus Pocock, 1890, and Uroplectes Peters, 1861. The following scheme of relationships is retrieved among the species of Pseudolychas: (P. ochraceus (P. pegleri + P. transvaalicus)).