Wild Fact #825 – Today’s Fact Might Sting a Bit – Bark Scorpion
It has been awhile since we have had a nice week long “theme” to Wild Facts so I figured this week would be dedicated to some of our poisonous friends around the world. You are going to want to come back every day this week to find out which animals are deadly, especially if you are traveling soon. We are going to start the week off with an animal that comes to mind when you think of deadly animals. Of course I am talking about scorpions and more specifically the Bark Scorpion.
The bark scorpion can be found in the Southern USA through Mexico and into various countries of Central America. We generally picture scorpions scurrying around in the sand, however, as their name suggests, the bark scorpion can usually be found in the trees. They prefer to live underneath the bark of trees where it is nice and cool. This causes problems for the people living in these areas since these scorpions tend to confuse the nice, cool spots of your home with that of trees. Why is this a problem? Keep reading to find out.
The venom of the bark scorpion is considered to be the most poisonous of all the scorpions in North America. If you are unfortunate enough to get stung by these little guys than you will experience extreme pain for about 24-72 hours. For the most part, the bark scorpion is not deadly to healthy adults, however, their sting can be fatal to children, pets and people with a weak immune system. What makes these scorpions even more troublesome is their plain, yellowish colour. What happened to the rule that poisonous animals be brightly coloured so we know not to mess with them? If you live in an area with bark scorpions then I suggest picking up a UV LED flashlight. I am not kidding! The bark scorpion will glow a nice green colour under UV light. You can actually spot them more than 50 feet away with this method. Pretty cool, eh?
Bark Scorpion Fast Fact: Scorpions are very resilient. In fact, researchers have frozen scorpions for weeks with no ill effects after they thawed. Even more impressively, scorpions have been found at ground zero after a nuclear blast and again they experienced no negative effects. I don’t know how they do it but it is pretty impressive.
Be sure to tune in for tomorrows deadly animal.
