Variability of sodium channel toxins in Mesobuthus thersites Advised toolkit for comprehensive venomics

Posted by
Variability of sodium channel toxins in Mesobuthus thersites Advised toolkit for comprehensive venomics Abstract Natural venoms constitute vast combinatorial libraries of ion channel ligands with unprecedented properties including high affinity and selectivity. Scorpion venoms in particular are abundant in sodium and potassium channel ligands representing small proteins or peptides, which are traditionally studied by transcriptomics and proteomics approaches. However, a universal algorithm to pursue the examination of multicomponent peptide-rich mixtures such as venoms is lacking. Here we present a general scheme to the analysis of scorpion toxin arsenal with focus on sodium channel ligands. We explored the venom of the Central Asian scorpion Mesobuthus thersites using venom gland transcriptomics and three proteomic methods. We compared traditional automated annotation by Blast2GO with our custom approach based on regular expressions. We found that the traditional annotation is compro...

A new species of the trapdoor spider genus Titanidiops Simon (Araneae: Idiopidae) from western Maharashtra, India

Posted by

 


A new species of the trapdoor spider genus Titanidiops Simon (Araneae: Idiopidae) from western Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT

A new species, Titanidiops kolhapurensis sp. n., is described on the basis of six adult female and three adult male specimens collected from the outskirts of Kolhapur City, western Maharashtra, India. Specimens of both sexes are described in detail and they are distinguished from all other known peninsular Indian congeners of Titanidiops and Idiops in several non-overlapping morphological characters. Notes on natural history, and on intraspecific variation of genital characters, as well as measurements and meristic data of the new species are provided. Additionally, we present preliminary observations on occurrence of the new species and other sympatric habitat specialist taxa in natural and altered/modified habitats from the type locality and nearby localities. We emphasise the urgent need to halt further alteration or modification of the natural habitat of T. kolhapurensis sp. n. and to implement habitat restoration measures to safeguard the new species and other habitat specialists from the imminent risk of local extinction.

Gangalmale, S., Thackeray, T., Khandekar, A., & Gaikwad, S. M. (2026). A new species of the trapdoor spider genus Titanidiops Simon (Araneae: Idiopidae) from western Maharashtra, India. Journal of Natural History, 60(5–8), 399–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2025.2603654