This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream and you can go to curiositystream.com/animal wonders
to learn more. Hello and welcome to Animal Wonders!
Today I'd like to introduce you to Professor Claw.
She's a beautiful emperor scorpion. I love showing her off and educating about
what makes these amazing animals so interesting.
[CHEERY INTRO MUSIC]
This is where Professor Claw lives, and she likes to spend her days burrowed
under leaf litter or hidden under a log. She's most active at night, and she'll
come out and move around, sometimes rearranging her space and making it more
comfortable or better for hunting. Professor Claw is a very docile scorpion,
and that's just her personality. There are scorpions who are more
high-strung and defensive than her, but because she's so easygoing, I'm able to
pick her up and I can give you a closer look. The first thing I do when I go to
pick her up is to make sure I don't approach her like a predator might.
If I come at her big and fast, she could react defensively. I'm going to make my hand as
flat as possible and move toward her like I'm part of the ground.
Being underneath her will help her feel less threatened.
Just look at her! Isn't she beautiful?
So let's talk about how these amazing arachnids hunt!
To capture her prey, which consists of mostly invertebrates or
very small vertebrates like baby rodents, she uses her claws to feel and grab.
If you look closely, you can see little hairs covering her claws.
They're sensitive, and by holding them in front, she'll be alerted to anything moving
around near her. She does have eyes, which are located on the top and also the
front part of her head. They don't have great vision, but she can see the size of
an animal in front of her. And if it's small enough to eat, she'll grab and
crush it with her pincers. If it's large and threatening, she'll use her claws to
defend herself as well as her stinger. Emperor scorpions are the largest
scorpion species in the world, but their venom is very mild. They mainly use their
large claws for attacking and defending, but their sting does hurt and could
deter a potential predator. If you want to compare the sting to another animal,
you could say it feels similar to a bee sting. It hurts and you wouldn't want to
get stung twice, but it's not deadly. However, their venom is potent enough to
incapacitate a small animal like a cricket or baby rodent, which makes them
easier to eat. When most people look at a scorpion, it's easy to think their claws
are arms, but if you count their legs you can see they have eight legs. And then,
their pincers are a wholly different set of appendages. These claws
are actually pedipalps, which are also found on spiders. They are located
between their legs and their special mouth parts called chelicerae.
She uses her pedipalps to quickly grab say, a cricket, and bring it close to
her mouth and take tiny bites. Scorpion chelicerae are really neat, and they
basically look like another set of tiny pincers. Professor Claw has been handled
regularly and she's familiar with the process, but not all of them will be this calm.
We actually rescued an adult female years ago who ended up surprising us and
giving birth to 20 scorplings. We kept two of the babies, and Professor Claw is
one of them. We also had her sister who we named Athena. The two sisters were
raised the same, but their personalities were completely different. Athena was not
a fan of being picked up at all and would put her claws and stinger up in a
defensive position whenever there was any movement around her.
Athena never settled down, and so she never became an ambassador for our
educational presentations. So that's a good reminder that every animal is an
individual and you can never assume that you know how they will behave just
because you've met another of their species. You need to take the time to get
to know the personality of any animal before trying to handle them.
Okay, I'm going to put Professor Claw back in her home now. You can see that she has a few
different places where she can hide. She likes her coconut shell hut a lot,
but she'll also crawl under the cork bark tunnel and sometimes she'll hang
out in the back corner. She has a good-sized water dish filled with chunks
of gelatin to keep it from drying out too quickly. She also has plenty of
natural furniture to climb on and explore.
She'll often rearrange the leaf litter or excavate her burrows. We keep the room
at about 77 degrees Fahrenheit most of the time, and it will range from 80 down to 72.
We also make sure a portion of the substrate always stays moist while the
other side stays dry. We do this by misting the back corner daily. This way,
she can choose where she wants to hang out and regulate herself. My favorite
thing about emperor scorpions is that they have this amazing weapon:
their stinger attached to the telson, which stores venom. But they rarely use the
venom and instead use their powerful claws most of the time.
Scorplings, who aren't as powerful as an adult, will use their stinger more frequently,
often stinging their prey repeatedly until they can no longer move.
Thankfully, Professor Claw is comfortable with me handling her, so that
I can hold her and share her with others. And thank you for letting me share her with you.
If you enjoy exploring and thinking about our natural world and the
organisms that live here like I do, then you should check out this video I
recently watched called The Material World. It takes a look at some of the
most amazing structures made in nature. You can find it on CuriosityStream, who
is the sponsor of today's video. They're are a subscription streaming service
that offers over 2400 documentaries and nonfiction titles from some of the
world's best filmmakers, including exclusive originals. Get unlimited access
starting at just $2.99 a month. And for our audience, the first 30 days are
completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com/animalwonders
and use the promo code "animalwonders" during the signup process.
Thank you and I'll see you next week!