Tityus apozonalli was described from a solitary fossil, which is preserved as an
inclusion in a transparent chunk of Mexican amber. At the time of description, the amber specimen was housed in the fossil collection of the
Museo del Ámbar de Chiapas in
San Cristóbal de las Casas,
Simojovel. The
holotype fossil is composed of a very complete adult male recovered from the Guadalupe Victoria site. Mexican amber is recovered from fossil bearing rocks in the
Simojovel region of
Chiapas,
Mexico. The amber dates from between 23 million years old at the oldest and 15 million years at the youngest. The Guadalupe Victoria site is an
outcrop of amber bearing strata belonging to the
Mazantic Shale and
Balumtum Sandstone. The deposits preserve a transitional river or stream environments near the coast and preserves fossils of a
mangrove forest ecosystem. The holotype was first studied by a team of researchers headed by Francisco Riquelme of the
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos with their 2015
type description of the species being published in the
natural sciences journal
PLoS ONE. The
specific epithet apozonalli was derived from the
Náhuatl word "apozonalli", coined by the Aztecs for amber, and translating as sea bubble or foam.
T. apozonalli is one of two
Tityus species described from Mexican amber, the other being
Tityus knodeli. Three other species have been described from the similarly aged
Dominican amber Tityus azari,
Tityus geratus and
Tityus hartkorni. ==Description==