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18377

Crude Artemisia judaica as a Natural Repellent Against the Egyptian Yellow Fat-tailed Scorpion Androctonus australis

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Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

Scorpion envenomation is a global life-threatening hazard. Therefore, there is a pressing need to find repellents against these animals for safer residential and human activity areas. The primary objective of this study was introducing a reliable natural repellent as a safer alternative to current pesticides that are mainly chemicals imposing health hazards and risks of environmental contamination. It is also aimed to investigate the effects of some repellents on the circadian clock, in addition to the involvement of pectines as the main chemoreceptors in regulating circadian locomotor activity under repulsive environmental stress in Androctonus australis scorpion. The repellency of crude litters of seven plants; artemisia, rosemary, cinnamon, ginger, peppermint, clove and cedar was investigated. Thus, sand substrate of a designed circular arena (Ø 120 cm) was covered with one candidate plant in each trial. A video-tracking system supported with infrared camera was used for data acquisition and analysis of circadian locomotor activities and spatial preference of intact and pectine-amputated scorpions, under free-running continuous darkness conditions (DD). Results illustrated the normal circadian locomotor activities in scorpions. They revealed a significant repulsive effect of Artemisia judaica (p<0.005), where animals spent (85%±5.81) of total time away from the substrate covered with Artemisia in comparison to the other plants. Pectine-amputation appeared to result in a significant loss of discrimination between the substrate covered with Artemisia and normal sand (p<0.005). Furthermore, Artemisia appeared to have no significant effect, neither on the average daily locomotor activity nor on the free-running period of the circadian clock. It could be concluded that Artemisia represents a safe natural repellent for scorpions. Under the current conditions, this repulsive environmental stressor has no significant influence on the scorpion circadian output.

Keywords

Artemisia judaica, Scorpion, plant repellents, circadian, Androctonus australis

Authors

First Name

Hesham

Last Name

Kassem

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Affiliation

Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

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Orcid

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First Name

Ehab

Last Name

Hassaneen

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

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First Name

Alaa El-Din

Last Name

Sallam

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Affiliation

Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

alaa_el-din_sallam@science.suez.edu.eg

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Volume

13

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

3837

Issue Date

2015-09-01

Receive Date

2018-11-05

Publish Date

2015-09-01

Page Start

37

Page End

44

Print ISSN

1687-5052

Online ISSN

2090-2786

Link

https://cat.journals.ekb.eg/article_18377.html

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https://cat.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=18377

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5

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Original Article

Type Code

644

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Catrina: The International Journal of Environmental Sciences

Publication Link

https://cat.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023