New scorpion species found in Ariz.

• Venom of related mountain scorpions generally mild
• There are 13 varieties of mountain scorpions%2C mostly in Arizona but also in New Mexico and Mexico
• Scorpion enthusiast grew up in New York City

PHOENIX -- As soon as Rich Ayrey saw the 2-inch-long scorpion, he knew it was something new.

After an adult lifetime of climbing Arizona mountains in search of novel arachnids -- and having had the honor of naming five scorpion species, including one for his wife -- he knew there was something different about the samples a friend had found near Tucson.

He also knew there could be great public interest in a new creature found near a major metropolitan area, not in a remote wilderness.

"There are still things to be discovered right here in 21st-century America," he said, repeating a line from the news release that accompanied his article submission to the journal ZooKeys.

The mahogany-colored predators looked a lot like Vaejovis deboerae, the little mountain scorpion named for his wife, Melinda DeBoer-Ayrey. The couple were camping above 6,000 feet when she turned over some bark and first spotted that species.

The scorpions Ayrey's friend found were smaller, with different proportions and claws, even though they lived just downhill from Vaejovis deboerae. They have not been tested for toxicity, but the venom of related mountain scorpions is generally mild, less painful than a bee sting.

Ayrey named the scorpion Vaejovis brysoni, after University of Washington post-doctoral scholar Robert Bryson, who spotted the arachnid in the Santa Catalina Mountains and sent the samples to Ayrey and a collaborator to identify last April.

"I can look at them and tell right away that they're a different species," said Ayrey, a Flagstaff nurse and former biologist whose hobby has led him up hundreds of mountains and onto the Web with azscorpion.com. He specializes in mountain scorpions, of which there are 13 varieties, mostly in Arizona but also in New Mexico and Sonora, Mexico.

As of mid-March, just several weeks after Bryson collected the new scorpion specimens, about 14,000 Facebook users had "liked" his photo of a mama Vaejovis brysoni carrying white babies on her back. That happened after a popular science blog posted the shot.

Online searches for the species name bring up a similar number of mentions and a short Wikipedia entry. Compare that with Vaejovis deboerae -- with only a few dozen online mentions and no Wikipedia page -- and you'd think there is something truly remarkable about this latest find.

What might that be?

"I wrote a damn good press release," Ayrey said.

In fact, something about this scorpion might be unique among Southwestern species. It lives in the same range as another mountain scorpion, whereas other species occupy their own ranges and are thought to have been isolated in their particular sky island to evolve over eons.

V. brysoni lives on scrubby slopes downhill from V. deboerae, which lurks among ponderosa pines.

But the listing of another brownish scorpion without much sting is uninspiring to some in Arizona entomology.

"It's not a very spectacular scorpion," said Carl Olson, retired associate curator of the University of Arizona's entomology department.

There are many scorpions in the Sonoran Desert that scientists have seen but haven't gone through the scientific rigor to classify. About 50 official species live in the state, and all but the bark scorpion are practically harmless. The bark scorpion lives in urban areas and can be life-threatening to children and people with health problems. It hasn't killed an Arizonan for decades, thanks to easy access to medical care. Children in isolated parts of Mexico are at greatest risk of death, experts say.

Scorpions, although scientifically interesting and well-adapted members of their ecosystems, are "overrated," Olson said, chuckling.

"Their reputation far exceeds anything that they do," he said. "But we like to spread that rumor so people from New York don't come out here."

Coincidentally, New York City produced one of Arizona's most enthusiastic scorpion enthusiasts: Ayrey.

Ayrey recalls growing up watching "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" TV programs and dreaming about nature. At 11, he started taking the subway to the American Museum of Natural History, where a specimen of the extinct dodo caught his attention and made him wonder who would kill it.

"I have always liked the more exotic and the more different kinds of things," he said. "You couldn't have got much more different living in New York than a desert creature in Arizona. All I wanted to do as a kid was get out here."

He came for college, first to Tucson and then graduate school in Flagstaff. And though his career veered from field biology, he never left the place or the passion.

"The kid in me that took that train uptown to go look at the animals at the museum always wanted to discover new species," he said.

An eager, well-versed amateur can do the job because for researchers there's no money in it.

"It's a minority sport," said Dawn Gouge, associate professor of entomology at the University of Arizona. "There's lots out there if somebody wants to take the time. There's no funding or significant interest in identifying new species of scorpions."

But, like Ayrey said, there's wonder in discovery.

"This new discovery is important because it shows that there can be hidden diversity in the U.S.," said Michael Webber, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas doctoral candidate who took about 50 distinguishing measurements on the specimens Bryson sent her and who co-wrote the ZooKeys article with Ayrey.

"In addition," she said, "it increases our knowledge of scorpion biology and is a reflection of the incredible diversity of scorpions in the American Southwest."

Bryson, who noticed that that new scorpion lived in different terrain than other scorpions in the Santa Catalinas, got the naming distinction but gives the credit to Webber and Ayrey.

"Rich is doing an outstanding job documenting and describing the scorpion diversity of Arizona," he said in an email, "and his contributions demonstrate how little we really know about the animals in our backyards!"