National Geographic Photo Of The Day:

[beam me up scottie]

Photograph by Bruce Dale
"Nocturnal crawler, a scorpion remains well camouflaged under a flash-light's beam, but fluoresces in ultraviolet light , a reaction that remains a mystery to scientists."

(Text and photograph from "The Desert: An Age-old Challenge Grows," November 1979, National Geographic magazine)

http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/cgi-bin/pod/enlarge.cgi?day=27&month=08&year=06

[mike_c]

1. hehe-- I sometimes hunt scorpions with a black light....

It's very cool.

[beam me up scottie]

2. If I know you,

you don't hunt them to kill, right?

[mike_c]

3. oh no-- I'm an entomologist and I just like seeing them....

I don't even collect them or study them to any extent. They're just cool little predators and I happen to have handheld UV lamps.

[beam me up scottie]

6. I'll never forget it,

I was moonlighting stocking shelves in a department store and I opened up a box of 99 cent key chains and inside were hundreds of tiny little scorpions encased in acrylic.

It was despicable. I was so outraged I refused to put them out.

How typical of humans to think we have the right to kill other living things for such stupid and worthless trinkets.

[mike_c]

10. yeah, that is really awful-- of course, I'm probably not one to talk...

...since I'm responsible for killing and pinning thousands-- tens of thousands-- of insects. I don't collect for myself though-- only for research and for teaching. Still, my students and I do kill lots of insects in the course of our professional lives. But not scorpions. We only kill for data, and since we don't study scorpions, we only look at them and marvel.

[beam me up scottie]

13. I couldn't do that.

Not as a kid and not now. Forgive me for being naive, but isn't there a quicker way to kill them?

My mom took me fishing when I was five, I asked her if putting the worms on hooks hurt them. She thought about it, put the worm back into the container and took me to the bait store down the road where we bought rubber worms.

[mike_c]

16. oh my goodness-- I'm sorry-- they're already dead when we pin them....

They're killed in a variety of ways, usually exposure to cyanide vapor, ethyl acetate vapor, or concentrated ethanol. It's much more humane than it sounds-- they don't have pain receptors and the vapors dispatch them quickly.

[beam me up scottie]

19. Oh, good, thanks.

I can't stand the thought of anything suffering needlessly.

[Occulus]

25. "since we don't study scorpions"

Who would do that? Seriously; I'm curious.

[Canuckistanian]

5. What do you do with scorpions?

Are they good eatin'? Pets? Scaring your little sister?

[mike_c]

8. nah, just fun to look at....

eom

[Kailassa]

11. One interesting use for scorpions

is to put one in the condom before you help a troll put it on.

[mike_c]

15. you have an evil imagination....

I am going to bed now, and will make sure to thoroughly check my sheets first.... :spank:

[Kailassa]

17. You're out of luck, sorry.

The scorpion-in-condom experience is for trolls only.
You don't qualify. ;-)

[jayctravis]

26. I saw a NG tv program TABOO ...this one was about food taboos

and there was a tasting of exotically weird foods -- they had scorpions roasted on a kabob.

On INSOMNIA with Dave Atell he visited a woman who breeds roosters, and she would get them scorpions to eat..."they're like lobster to them".

[azurnoir]

4. We have an Emperor scorpion

not a desert scorpion but he does glow green under a blacklight.

[beam me up scottie]

7. Green?

I'd like to see that. What does he eat?

[Bobbieo]

9. Used to see them all the time in Tucson

But have never seen one in Yuma. Guess it is too hot!!!

[mike_c]

12. take a black light out at night into the canyons and arroyos...

...and flip over rocks and logs. You'll see them.

[beam me up scottie]

14. Is that one of your pics?

That is SO cool.

[mike_c]

18. no, I just grabbed it from a quick google search....

It was posted here: http://www.public.asu.edu/~bbackes/index.html

[beam me up scottie]

20. Scorpions make better mothers than some humans.

Check her out. :D

[Bobbieo]

21. In Tucson, my kids were taught

to shake out their shoes - everytime - before they put them on.

[azurnoir]

22. crickets mostly occasionaly spiders n/t

[driver8]

23. I have a tattoo of a scorpion on my right shoulder.

Not because I have any great fondness for them, ( though they are pretty amazing), but because I'm a Scorpio.

[beam me up scottie]

24. Good choice for a tat.

One you won't regret later.

[eppur_se_muova]

27. Bizarre. Some insects can see in the near UV -- I wonder if

that makes the scorpions appear darker to such insects, if they're not reflecting UV, but absorbing it?