Hedieh Jafari - Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute, Ahvaz, Agricultural Research, Education & Extension Organization (AREEO)
Shahrokh Navidpour - Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute, Karaj, Agricultural Research, Education & Extension Organization (AREEO)
Fatemeh Saalabi - Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute, Ahvaz, Agricultural Research, Education & Extension Organization (AREEO)
Behzad Masihipour - Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute, Karaj, Agricultural Research, Education & Extension Organization (AREEO)

Orthochirus species from Butidae family have distributed arthropods all around the world. At yet, 17 species from this scorpion are determined and 7 species have been reported from different districts of Iran. In this study, Orthochirus zagrosensis scorpions were gathered from different zones of Khuzestan province and after morphological examination, DNA extraction from metasoma muscle was performed. Polymerase chain reaction, sequencing, and phylogenetic study were constructed based on cytochrome oxidase subunit (CoxI). Of the 668 nucleotides of the replicated COXI gene revealed, 517 constant characters (77.39%), 151 variables (22.60%), 95 parsimony informative (14.22%) and 46 characters are the unique positions. Phylogenetic analyzes showed that Orthochirus zagrosensis samples form a monophyletic group, and Khuzestan isolates are located in the clade 1 and are most similar to Orthochirus irannus. Molecular results conformed to morphological characteristics.

Scorpion, Orthochirus zagrosensis,Phylogeny, CoxI, Khuzestan