A new species of Chiromachetes Pocock, 1899 (Scorpiones: Hormuridae) from southern Western Ghats, India.

A new species of the genus Chiromachetes Pocock, 1899 (Hormuridae Laurie, 1896) is described based on a single male and two female specimens collected from Agasthyamalai Mountains in Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, southern Western Ghats, India. The new species can be easily distinguished from all five known congeners by combination of non-overlapping morphological characters such as chela length-width ratio, femur length-width ratio, chela length-movable finger length ratio, the number of pectinal teeth, and subtle color differences of both the sexes respectively. Chiromachetes agasthyamalaiensis sp. n., represent the sixth described species, the fifth from the Western Ghats, and the first to be reported from the state of Tamil Nadu of this peninsular Indian endemic genus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]