The two teens visited the sites of the iNaturalist observations—California’s Soda Lake and Koehn Lake—to search for male and female scorpions. In it, they describe Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus, two brand-new species of playa scorpions, which are found near the dry lake beds of central and southern California. Their adaptations are so specialized that both species can only be found living near the lakes where the citizen scientists first spotted them—Soda Lake for P. soda and Koehn Lake for P. conclusus. P. soda is naturally protected because its entire range is located inside the federally managed Carrizo Plain National Monument. “You set them out in a landscape and they’re like: ‘Here’s every species of snake, here’s every scorpion, every butterfly,’ and it’s kind of incredible.”

Source: CBC News September 26, 2022 17:05 UTC