Glowing in the dark
Scorpions glow blue-green under ultraviolet light. Nobody is certain why.
African desert
Desert scorpion
Scorpiones
An eight-legged relative of spiders, with a pair of pincers in front and a curved tail ending in a sting.
- Size
- Mostly 5 to 12cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Deserts and dry country across Africa
Scuttles after you with its pincers open. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Scorpion
Good to know
Six things about the scorpion
A spider's cousin
Scorpions are arachnids, like spiders, with eight legs.
Riding on mum
A mother scorpion gives birth to live young, which ride on her back until their first moult.
A year without food
A scorpion can slow its body down so much that it survives for months on a single meal.
Ancient animals
Scorpions were among the first animals to live on land, more than 400 million years ago.
Mostly mild
Only a small number of the world's scorpions have a sting that is dangerous to people.
The real thing
Photos of the scorpion
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
By day they hide under stones and in burrows. At night, people who study them find them with an ultraviolet torch, which makes them glow.
How to help
Leave them where they are: they eat huge numbers of insects. In scorpion country, shake out shoes before putting them on.
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