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The authors have adequately addressed the few minor comments of the reviewer, and the paper can be accepted for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Kenneth De Baets, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
The one reviewer made a few last suggestions for improving the paper.
The authors made a good effort to address the reviewers’ comments, especially concerning the figures. The revised version is much improved.
A few minor issues, associated with the new content, should be addressed:
I don’t know if it matters for the final publication but the new section “Integrating fossils and the significance of trichobothria” is not listed in the Contents.
The following statement (lines 108-110) “The higher systematics of extant scorpions has attracted considerable controversy, with Prendini & Wheeler (2005) arguing that some studies of their relationships lack rigour; for counter arguments see Fet & Soleglad (2005)” is misleading insofar as the phrase “counter arguments” falsely implies an equivalence between the two papers and suggests that the arguments presented in some way “countered” the criticisms. That was not the case for the following reasons. (1) Fet & Soleglad (2005) did not provide “counter arguments”; they did not address any of Prendini & Wheeler’s (2005) criticisms of their analytical approach. (2) Prendini & Wheeler’s (2005) paper was published in one of the two most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals in phylogenetic reconstruction at the time whereas Fet & Soleglad’s (2005) paper was published in an online journal edited by the same authors, and the short timeframe within which their paper appeared in response to Prendini & Wheeler (2005) speaks volumes about the peer review process (or lack thereof) of their self-edited publication. To remove this false equivalence, “for counter arguments see Fet & Soleglad (2005)” should be reworded as follows: “see Fet & Soleglad (2005) for a response.”
Soleglad & Fet, who named the two parvorders for the major lineages of scorpions about 20 years ago, would seem to be a more appropriate citation for the statement (lines 110-111) “living scorpions are now usually divided into two major lineages (or parvorders)” than Sharma and Santibanez.
If the authors insist on citing authors’ national origins, they should do so consistently. They shall also need to cite the national origins of Michael Soleglad, Victor Fet, Lorenzo Prendini and Ward Wheeler in the section entitled “Integrating fossils and the significance of trichobothria”.
There’s a formatting problem in line 870.
“Wheeler” is misspelled “Wheler” in line 903.
It is good practice to acknowledge reviewers in the Acknowledgements.
See above
See above
See above
The three reviewers gave insightful views on the paper. While some aspects will be easy to address, the reviewers also raised more substantial aspects to consider in revising the paper.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
This contribution is mainly a huge historical synopsis. There are no polemic statements and most views are exposed in a unique linear way.
If this type of contribution enter the scope of the journal, than I see no problem for its publication.
As in all synopsis some minor errors may be present. I indicate here some that I was able to observe. Accordingly with the number of lines:
76. Correct to Hormuridae.
106. Idem to 76.
138. Change to 'Catalog of the scorpions of the world (1758-1998).
947. Correct to Betaburmesebuthus Lourenço, 2015 in Lourenço & Beigel, 2015.
1334. Reference here does not follows the logical order.
1661. Correct to Pseudochactidae.
1664. Two species of Electrochaerilus are known. See Lourenço & Velten, 2023.
1672. Correct to Lourenço, 2015 in Lourenço & Beigel, 2015.
1725. Correct to Vaejovoidea?
No comment
No comment
With some minor corrections the article may be published.
I have no authority to revise English style, but both authors are Native-English-Language.
This ms reviews the historical development of the higher classification of fossil scorpions and provides basic statistics about fossil scorpion taxa and graphical summaries of past classifications. The authors’ stated intention is to provide “an aid, and hopefully a prelude, to future phylogenetic studies.”
The subject of fossil scorpion classification has not been recently reviewed, justifying the need to do so. Two strengths of the ms include (1) compiling information from many disparate sources, published over more than a century, into one place and (2) the graphical analyses presented (although some of the figures seem unnecessary – see below). Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the review is of sufficiently broad and cross-disciplinary interest to fall within the scope of the journal. This contribution is geared primarily toward an arachnological readership and may be better targeted at an arachnological and/or paleontological journal.
The Introduction adequately introduces the subject. Clear and unambiguous, professional English is used throughout the ms but the text is written in a rather narrative, colloquial fashion, e.g., “Another significant fossil arachnid worker was the Russian-born, later USA-based, Alexander Petrunkevitch”; “The Brazilian palaeontologist Maria da Gloria P de Carvalho teamed up with Wilson Lourenco …”. One wonders what relevance to the review is the frequent mention of authors’ national origins?
The Figures are generally well done although generic names should be italicized in all figures. The significance of the color scheme in the figures portraying classifications is unclear and does not seem to be entirely consistent. Figures 4–10, presenting classification schemes preceding Kjellesvig-Waering’s, seem unnecessary. In particular, there seems no compelling reason to present four separate figures for Petrunkevitch’s (1913, 1949, 1953, 1955) successive classifications. There may be more efficient and comparative ways to present these data (e.g., tables).
The review is organized logically into coherent paragraphs/subsections. The Material and Methods are described in sufficient detail to replicate the analyses (and supported by Supplementary Material). However, the chronological layout of the text between the Material and Methods and the Discussion (pp 8–41) reads somewhat like a menu and the items become rather inconsistent as it progresses, due to the brief, paragraph-length treatments of most entries before and after the longer sections devoted to Kjellesvig-Waering, Stockwell and Jeram. The authors might consider fusing the paragraph-length treatments into longer sections which are more comparable. However, this would be a band-aid as the chronological structure has limitations. A topic-based structure would be more interesting to the reader and probably more useful. Also, the “boring-but-important” discussion of higher clade names (lines 1058–1078) seems buried in the Discussion, which is a rambling account of topics that raises more questions than answers.
Although literature citations are mostly adequate and sufficient field background/context is provided, supporting citations are missing for many statements such as “living scorpions are now usually divided into two major lineages (or parvorders)” (line 100); “were reassigned to the recently revalidated family Ananteridae” (line 119); “as other authors have commented, Kjellesvig-Waering’s monograph is problematic …” (lines 136-137). Regarding the statement that “there is debate in the literature about whether Microcharmidae should be considered a valid family (see e.g. Lowe & Kovarik 2022, and references therein)” (lines 805-806), the authors may be unaware that Microcharmidae was synonymized by Volschenk et al. (2008) Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 154: 651–675.
Additionally, the review is not particularly discriminating when it comes to the literature cited, appearing to give equally serious consideration to major, peer reviewed works and those best described as “fringe positions,” published in outlets not subject to rigorous (if any) peer review, and even to unpublished works like Stockwell’s Ph.D. (in fairness, Stockwell’s Ph.D. likely received a more rigorous evaluation than many of the papers on fossil scorpions that have been published, since). For some reason, the authors follow a website “the Scorpion Files (Rein, 2017) which currently recognizes 24 extant families” (lines 157 and 158) for living scorpion classification. This is not a peer reviewed publication and should not be cited in the place of primary literature.
Missing from the historical chronology is a discussion of Soleglad and Fet’s (2001, 2003) attempt to incorporate fossils into their phylogenetic analyses of extant scorpions and Prendini and Wheeler’s (2005) critique thereof. Clearly, the authors cannot omit these discussions while retaining the discussions of Stockwell’s (1989) Ph.D. thesis and Jeram’s (1994, 1998) analyses as these represent the sum-total of contributions addressing any aspect of fossil scorpion phylogeny, to date.
It should also be mentioned that discussions of trichobothria in fossil scorpion taxa and proposals of new families and genera based on those putatively “new patterns” (lines 905–912, 950–953) in the papers by Lourenco, Soleglad and Fet, and others are highly questionable. For a discussion of the problem, see Prendini and Wheeler (2005). In keeping with its agnostic treatment of the literature, this review fails to adequately point out these and many other shortcomings abundantly evident in the morphology, taxonomy, and classification of fossil scorpions, beyond the well-worn critique of Kjellesvig-Waering’s monograph.
The conclusions circle back to the original questions raised in the Introduction. The conclusions are also rather vague. Basically, the existing classification of modern scorpions is inadequate and in need of revision. This has been known for a long time and stated by many others. Beyond mentioning the need for cladistic analysis, which will be difficult to implement for reasons briefly noted, this review does little to identify how the challenges will be surmounted. In other words, the Conclusion does identify unresolved questions and points to future directions but fails to indicate how existing problems can be resolved, beyond a general need for modernization.
The Reference list is inconsistently formatted.
Several spelling mistakes were noted (the list is not exhaustive):
Lines 76, 106 – “Homuridae”
Line 756 – “Compsoscopius”
Line 914 – “Chaerilodea”
Is the review of broad and cross-disciplinary interest and within the scope of the journal?
R= Yes.
Has the field been reviewed recently? If so, is there a good reason for this review (different point of view, accessible to a different audience, etc.)?
R=No
Does the Introduction adequately introduce the subject and make it clear who the audience is/what the motivation is?
R=Yes
Is the Survey Methodology consistent with a comprehensive, unbiased coverage of the subject? If not, what is missing?
R= Yes.
Are sources adequately cited? Quoted or paraphrased as appropriate?
R= Yes.
Is the review organized logically into coherent paragraphs/subsections?
R= Yes.
Is there a well developed and supported argument that meets the goals set out in the Introduction?
R= Yes, with few considerations to be addressed.
Does the Conclusion identify unresolved questions / gaps / future directions?
R=Yes.
A historical review of fossil scorpion higher systematics.
This work combines the historiographic analysis of published literature with data analysis from a paleodiversity database. It is an exercise of erudition and database analysis. This proposal combines naturalistic taxonomy approaches and macroevolutionary biology methods to study the fossil record. However, to my understanding, there are points and content of the work that can be addressed:
1. Title.
1.1. Because it combines historiographic review with database analysis (a practice regularly seen in macroevolutionary papers), the word "historical" can be removed from the title without any consequences in syntax.
2. Introduction.
2.1. Given that the aim is to introduce a work as a prelude to future phylogenetic analyses (p. 7: Line 143-144), namely, to understand the evolutionary history of the group, How does a historiographic review of published works on Scorpiones fossil record (as opposed to the data curation of a complete, comprehensive catalog) offer a more effective approach to comprehending the size and taxonomic composition of the clade before conducting phylogenetic analysis?
Please elaborate (see above the Discussion section: 5.1.)
2.2. In the abstract and main text, only the count of taxa in the fossil record up to the genus level is mentioned, which I understand is due to the nature of the study. However, from the reader's perspective, knowing the total number of species (currently not mentioned in any section) in the fossil record would be helpful without undermining the study's objective.
2.3. The geological ages mentioned in the text should be noted as approximate, using abbreviations such as ca. or others.
2.4. Line 120 (pag.6): “…and Mexican Chiapas (23-13 Ma)…”
I have never suggested to another author my published work as a reference for their work; it is very neurotic and ridiculous, to say the least, and misleading, but here I feel obliged to point out the following:
I recently published a paper's preprint presenting the Zircon U-Pb dating of the mine at Simojovel, Chiapas, Mexico, where the scorpion T. apozonalli was found. This work is currently under peer review. The corresponding age for those strata is ca. 24 Ma (late Oligocene). This is important for the evolutionary history of the species because it places it at the end of the Paleogene. It is difficult to omit today that this is already known, so I dare to suggest instead two other optional references, previously published: Allison (1967) and Frost & Langenheim (1974), who initially estimated the same late Oligocene age with biostratigraphy and additionally extended it to the early Miocene, i.e., late Oligocene-early Miocene. Therefore, I suggest the following correction to the aforementioned sentence:
“…and Oligo-Miocene Mexican amber (ca. 24 Ma).”
Allison, R.C.1967.The Cenozoic stratigraphy of Chiapas, Mexico, with discussions of the classification of the Turritellidae and selected Mexican representatives. [Ph.D. dissertation], University of California, Berkeley, 468 pp
Frost, S.H. and R. L. Langenheim. 1974. Cenozoic reef biofacies, tertiary larger Foraminifera, and scleractinian corals from Chiapas, Mexico. De Kalb (IL), Northern Illinois University Press. p. 388.
Riquelme, M., B. Ortega-Flores, E. Estrada-Ruiz, V. Córdova-Tabares. 2024. Zircon U-Pb Ages of the Chiapas Amber-Lagerstätte (Mexico: Chiapas: Simojovel). SSRN. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4778409
3. Material and Methods
3.1. Since the information is currently presented in chronological order in the results section, from the reader's point of view (I consider myself a reader here), I suggest that the reviewed taxonomic references (taxonomic only) be given in the same chronological sequence by publication date (and not in the usual alphabetical index format) as an additional, single database in supplementary material or associated with an online database (electronic supplement), for future consultation, reference, and potential additions by readers. This is optional.
4. Results (not explicitly presented in the manuscript).
4.1. The presentation of data in historiographical analysis can easily give the appearance of selectivity and categorization. For example, certain authors may be emphasized while others may only be superficially treated due to the format. Authors can easily be categorized into guild hierarchies, such as authorities, specialists, paleontologists, etc., and cultural categories, such as French, American, German, Brazilian, etc. So, historiographical categorization can easily blur taxonomic data, which must be straight and unambiguous.
Although I prefer harsh and critical writing in all scientific texts, I always respect all narrative styles in scientific literature. However, on this occasion, I suggest that the historiographical style proposed here be presented even more parsimoniously, not affecting the narrative structure but rather avoiding the anecdote as much as possible and emphasizing the taxonomic data.
4.2. Figures can be shown in the Results section; they currently appear in an Appendix in this manuscript. Some, such as figures 4 and 5, 6 and 7, and 14 and 16, for example, can be integrated into a single figure for better comparative purposes.
4.3. Several figure notes seem lengthy and wordy, but the additional information can be included in the Results section. More concise figure notes should be recommended.
4.4. I also suggest including the summarized taxonomic list (currently in the Appendix) at the end of the Conclusion section, removing its long title, which seems unnecessary, but including an obligate short subtitle for the list.
5. Discussion.
5.1. Data curation forms the foundation of phylogenetic analysis, whereas historiographic analysis risks being anecdotal and potentially subjective. So, does this work instead of complementing the curation of the databases that will later be used for phylogenetic analyses?
Thus, the next natural step (before phylogenetic analysis) will be developing a reasoned database with a list of species (already elaborate) and their distinctive characters (not yet developed or proposed). Integrate two levels of information: species list and diagnostic character lists. This concept is already observed in other groups, such as ants at the AntWiki data library, which sometimes achieves its goal of structuring taxonomic information.
Please consider discussing this in the discussion section.
5.3. Based on the information provided, the development of Scorpiones' taxonomy has not followed a gradual or coherent pattern. Instead, there appears to be a disarray of theories, hypotheses, and specific fluctuating episodes of rhetoric and tautology. It is anticipated that future descriptions of the late Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossil record will increase due to future discoveries in amber inclusions. This will open up knowledge to a more heterogeneous group of authors and reduce the dominance of figures identified as authorities, which, according to the data presented in this paper, has led to controversy and biases in advancing Scorpiones taxonomy. Do the authors have any comments on this observed trend that they can express in the discussion section?
5.2. Two points need to be sufficiently addressed about the implications of this work concerning the fossil taxa with partial, problematic, or ambiguous descriptions.
5.2.1. From the historical and curatorial point of view:
Please address this issue based on the observed trend of type material being lost or held in private collections, making it impossible to verify. This problematic issue has been ongoing since the 19th century and has persisted intermittently throughout the 20th century. Even modern works by currently active authors are affected, as they often base their descriptions on type material from biased private collections or specimens collected through unverified means without proper data. Fossil scorpions are charismatic specimens; collectors desire them, and taxonomists aim to describe them. The discussion may include the impact of unverified repositories or lost collections on Scorpiones taxonomy.
5.2.2. From the systematic paleontology point of view:
As this work has shown, the fossil record in the Paleozoic is incomplete and contains problematic descriptions with few preserved characters, causing bias. This bias can impact estimates of clade grouping by phylogenetic identity or dating the origin of the scorpion lineage in clock-model phylogenies. What should be done with these fossil taxa? How can we prevent the separation of the systematic paleontology of Scorpiones from molecular systematics?
Including fossil species in phylogenetic studies aimed at determining their phylogenetic identity or in clock models is generally challenging. Additionally, the absence of consensus on the classification of informal species groups raises questions about promoting taxonomic stability for future phylogenetic analysis directed toward determining the phylogenetic identity of fossil species or generating clock-model phylogenies.
Is creating informal taxon groups (form taxa) or "wastebasket taxon" a practical solution for the Scorpiones systematics?
For example, should poorly described taxa from the Paleozoic be included in form taxa to avoid obscuring the phylogenetic signal?
Please elaborate to enrich the discussion from the data presented in this work.
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