new little scorplings... sooo cute!

[Lisa Baines]

Did anyone else buy these little cuties from leeds???

These are 2i (?) Euscorpius Flavicaudis, about 5mm long



And just to get an idea of size, here's on on the top of a cricket tub lid...

[jason holland]

im presuming there scorplings or however you say it?

[Colin D Wilson]

What type microscope did you use to get yours out the original bottles then eh???

My poor old tired eyes

[Lisa Baines]

yes they're scorplings sorry lol!

They got knocked over in the back of the van, so as soon as we got home I gently tipped the bottle and gently tapped substrate and wee scorplings out. One took me ages to find amongst the substrate... I though I had been sold an empty bottle lmao!

And now they're in a cricket tub all snuggled up under a piece of bark.

I gave them some crickets last night and they look like they have all scoffed one each, which i was chuffed to see.

[Matthew Baines]

My poor old tired eyes

Old being the operative word there colin TEE HEE!

[Colin D Wilson]

watch it ya whipper snapper.

[Matthew Baines]

How big will these specks of scorpion get?

[Colin D Wilson]

about 2 -2.5 inches if they are the same as the ones down south on the dockland walls.

[Lisa Baines]

aye thats the ones. A few of us are off down there next august to do a bit of scorpion spotting, hopefully gunna make a camping weekend of it.

[matthew spooner]

i live about a 10 min drive from sheppey docks where scorpions are living. a while ago me and a friend went scorp hunting and caught a few of them. i think my friend still has them, really nice scorpions

[Colin D Wilson]

Not sure about what the legal standing is about collecting at present but in the future they may be a protected species as the old buildings and walls they have become established in are slowly being rennovated thus the scorpion is losing it's adopted habitat.

[Lisa Baines]

We looked into this and we cant find any info from the local council saying that they are protected. We found a few councils list all protected species in this country on their websites and the E.Flavicaudis doesn't appear anywhere that we have found up to now.

We believe they are still classed as 'aliens' to this country and therefore unlikely to get the 'protected' status.

But if anyone has any information saying that they cannot be touched please feel free to correct our findings. Because we spent about a week on the net every night to see if they were protected and what the standing was about taking specimens from the wild

And if they aren't we thought we'd grab a few to try and get a few blood lines going to keep this species going for the hobby, as they are not one you see come up very often.

EDIT: I have just emailed the local council to be on the safe side At least if we get the legal standing in writing we know for sure

[Colin D Wilson]

I must admit i can't find anything either, there's a few concerns about them being an introduced species floating around but as they've been here well over 100 years i can't see that being relevant now (environmentaly i mean).

Good idea to email the local council, i hope they are aware of the details more so that when i enquired about S florentina a couple of years ago...drew a blank there, I contacted the BAS (at the same time) and had the information i needed within a few days.

[Lisa Baines]

well they seem to have done pretty well for themselves because i found loads of articles about them reaching as far as London and scaring the chuff out of a lot of people lol!

(how can they be scary they're only small at the best of times)

Whats the BAS????

[Colin D Wilson]

The British Arachnological Society.