Friday, June 11, 2010

Something Completely Different

I took this a few years ago while doing field work in the desert west of Phoenix, Arizona. It's a giant harry scorpion - surprisingly enough, it's actually not that dangerous/poisonous. The real nasty scorpions are the bark scorpions and they are tiny. And yes, the bottom of the scale bar is in inches - this guy was about 6 inches long from claw to the tip of its tale.

6 comments:

Brett said...

That's quite a monster. I'm glad we don't get bugs like that where I live.

surprisingly enough, it's actually not that dangerous/poisonous.

Ah, so was Indiana Jones right, and with scorpions, "the bigger the better"?

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I used to live in Arizona and once in a while, we'd get these things in the house.

Neth said...

yes, the bigger the better - those little bark scorpions have a nasty sting.

Thankfully in the 10 years I lived in the Phoenix area, we never had scorpions at my house. Around there people get cats to kill scorpions, not mice.

Anonymous said...

pretty cool. but it still is kind of freaky [even though the big ones are not poisinous]. sorry if i misspelled that.

Simcha said...

Scorpions are creepy little critters. We get them in the house sometimes, though the worst is when they turn up in unexpected places. My husband and I once found one in our bed, after we turned in for the night. My husband was complaining that there was something in the bed and I told him to stop being such a baby, it was just his imagination. And then he went to turn on the light and there was a nasty yellow scorpion on the bed. Now i always check the sheets first...

Neth said...

One time camping out in the desert someone brought a black light (most scorpions around here glow in UV light). On this trip I hadn't bothered to set up a tent because it was a nice night. The ground was literally crawling with scorpions - dozens within our campsite. It took me a long time to fall asleep that night (and I checked my boots very carefully the next morning).

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