Since moving to Thailand, I've always been fascinated by the diverse range of wildlife that I come across. Coming from the UK, it's very different to the usual and small array of British wildlife such as the foxes, rabbits, squirrels and hedgehogs that I'm used to seeing.
In the UK, very little in nature is dangerous or scary. With the absence of hurricanes, earthquakes and general natural disasters and where the wildlife is mostly lovable rather than life-threatening, when you come across species such as this scorpion, it can be a bit of a shock.
According to various online sources, we have 18 different species and subspecies of scorpions, all of which are venomous. The two everyone knows here are the small brown ones and the big black ones! The bigger one is less venomous, and the females are always bigger than the males.
Our particular friend in the video is, I believe, either an Asian Forest Scorpion (Heterometrus spinifer) or a Thai Black Scorpion (Heterometrus laoticus). The little brown one, which has an allegedly slightly more painful sting, is a Bark Scorpion. Small pincer varieties are always the ones with the most dangerous stings, so I'm led to believe.
Another thing about scorpions is that they're 'well hard'. You often see quoted in dubious internet articles that if the world were wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, scorpions would be one of the only creatures that would survive. After seeing one of these fellas walk out, albeit slightly wobbly, from under one of my garden bonfires after an hour, I can very well believe it.
Here in Thailand, I always check my shoes before putting them on. I know its not going to kill me, but still, I don't want to be stung by a sneaky scorpion and especially not by one of our terrifying, venomous, and quite dangerous centipedes.
For the scorpions at least, life is not totally in their favour as they are also hunted, cooked and turned into a 'delicious' street-food snack. After my bonfire experience, I do wonder how long they must have to be cooked for before they succumb. I think I'll pass on that...
So that's it, I'm going to leave you with one minute of video action as a black forest scorpion, about 8 cm long, wanders around my front lawn. In case you're wondering, no, I didn't kill it, and I most certainly didn't eat it!
Thanks for dropping by, and I hope everyone is having a great week and looking forward to the weekend.
Finally, don't forget...
