Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

With crablike pincers and barbed tails, scorpions strike fear into the hearts of many who see them.

04— I think we have a natural reaction to anything with different body morphology.

Ben Hutchins is an invertebrate biologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife. He says scorpions dwell in a wide variety of habitats.

03— Pretty much any habitat except Alpine environments.

Although we have several species of scorpions in Texas, Hutchins says we’re not likely to run into them.

18— Usually, we don’t run into them that often because they’re mainly active at night; during the day they’re usually hiding under rocks, under logs – deep in leaf litter as well. So, we don’t run into them a lot, except when perhaps we’re in the yard gardening, or they might wander into our house at night.

It’s that last part about wandering into the house at night that’s worrisome. Why do they come into our homes?

08— It’s not really intentional; during their foraging, they might see a crack under your door as just another crevice that they’ll be traveling through in search of prey.

Once they’re inside, they could make themselves comfy.

08— If you have a room with the lights off and lots of boxes – places to hide – that mirrors their natural environment with lots of secure hiding place for them.

Note to self: remove boxes from home office and turn on lights. Find an article about scorpions in the June issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2014 at 12:00 am and is filed under TPW Mag, Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.