Field Guide/Scorpions

Scientific name
Buthus occitanus

Description
The common yellow scorpion has a yellowish colour. It is from 12 centimeters to 15 centimeters long. It has got a long tail with a light brown stinger which is used to sting and kill its prey, paralyzing them. It has 8 legs and 2 pincers.

Location
The common yellow scorpion lives in in North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe, mostly in arid and rocky habitats. In Spain, it is found up to 1000 meters above sea level, where it survives snowfall in the winter.

Facts
The common yellow scorpion has got an exoskeleton so it shades it.

Reproduction
When common yellow scorpions are going to mate, they hold themselves from the pincers and they dance in circles. These species is a viviparan species. After that, the male leaves a bag of sperm and the female picks it. The female sometimes eats her mate after mating.

Feeding
The common yellow scorpion feeds mainly in insects and arachnids.

Daily and annual activity
The common yellow scorpion is normally active in the hottest months of the year. It is a nocturnal species so it goes out of its shelter to hunt at night. In the day it normally hides under shelter like rocks, leaves, trenchs in walls... It can climb so you can find it on a wall or on the ceiling.

Venom
Its toxicity varies markedly over its range: European scorpions give a nasty but essentially harmless sting (except to people who are allergic; comparable to bee stings), while Northern African ones are occasionally lethal. It is generally more harmful and painful for kids, elderly people, small animals and allergic people.

Bark Scorpion
Slender Brown Scorpion

Desert Hairy Scorpion

Black Rock Scorpion

Asian Forest Scorpion

Scientific name
Centruroides sculpturatus

Centruroides gracilis

Hadurus arizoninesis

Urodacus manticus

Heterometrus swammerdami

Description
The bark scorpion is a small light brown scorpion. The adult male is 8 centimeters long and the female is slightly smaller with 7 centimeters. Relatives of this species often include the slender brown scorpion, desert scorpion, black rock scorpion and asian forest scorpion.

Location
The bark scorpion is common in the United States of America, in the Sonoran Desert.

Habitat
The bark scorpion is a species that lives in the desert because its layers of fat keep it hydrated but it hides under shelters during the day.

Feeding
The bark scorpion is a nocturnal species so it hunts its prey at night. It feeds mainly in crickets and cocroach.

Enemies
The bark scorpion is hunted by many species of reptiles, birds, and other invertebrates: like Snakes, spiders, wildboar, rodents and other species of scorpions. There are other factors that kills that scorpion such as pesticides, selling them for pets and the recolection for scientists to do experiments.

Reproduction
The bark scorpion takes several months to be born and when it gives birth to  newborns,  they go to the back of it. It gives birth from 25 to 35 newborns that become independent at the 3rd week of life. The bark scorpion can live for 6 years.

Facts
The bark scorpion joins in the winter into a group of scorpions and they all form groups of 20 and 30 individuals. Scientists have discovered that they are extremely resistant because if the scorpion freezes, it can be like that for several weeks and it doesn't die.

Venom
The bark scorpion is the most venemous scorpion of North America and its poison is very painful and harmful. Its sting can last from 24 to 72 hours. The sintoms are that you can be paralized, you have foam in your mouth, you can't breathe for a short period of time and after the poison has passed there can be some electric shocks. In Mexico, there are more than 100.000 people that are stinged by the bark scorpion every year.

Antidote
There is an antidote that is used for this type of scorpion poison. If you get stinged by a scorpion you have to go to a hospital.

First aid
The basic aids for this sting are:
 * Clean the area where the scorpion has injected the poison.
 * Put a cold towel on it.
 * Take paracetamol (Tylenol) and ibuprofen.