- I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to free handle
the most lethal scorpion species in the United States.
Are you ready? Here we go!
One,
Two,
Three.
Whew, that definitely gets you nerves goin'.
(intense jungle music)
(grizzly bear growling)
There's an old saying that things go bump in the night,
which usually refers to anything mysterious,
and more often than not, frightening.
There it is, the desert millipede.
One thousand legs, awesome!
Now imagine yourself out walking alone,
in the darkness of Arizona Sonoran Desert,
a wild place that comes alive in the dark
with spiders, snakes, and the one creature
that personally makes my skin crawl, the scorpion.
Armed with a set of pincers, and a venom injecting stinger,
they're about as creepy as nature gets.
I love bein' out in the desert at night.
The temperatures are so much cooler,
animals are movin' all over the place,
but it's a little creepy.
I mean, I can see up ahead of us here with the flashlight,
but as soon as these lights go off,
and the black lights come on,
it becomes much more difficult to see
anything other than the scorpions.
Now the black light
is just what you need for finding scorpions,
because the UV actually causes them to illuminate
a bright yellowish green.
Now what we wanna do is kinda comb the edges of the wash,
get up into some rock piles, and see if
we can get our hands on one of these creepy crawlies.
But what if I told you that these creatures,
which most consider living nightmares,
were actually more afraid of us
than we should ever be of them?
So tonight, I'm going to prove
that scorpions, despite being creepy,
are not out there to get us, and in fact,
really just want to be left alone.
Here we go.
Right there, right, wow, look how quick that is.
And that is definitely a Stripe-tailed scorpion.
The most common scorpion in the Sonoran desert
is the Stripe-tailed.
Got it.
- [Voiceover] Nice.
- [Coyote] Whew, whew. - [Voiceover] Transfer--
- [Coyote] Oh boy, that makes you nervous.
- [Voiceover] Come back here towards the light.
- [Coyote] Oh boy, okay.
That takes a lotta nerve, to pick up a scorpion that small.
Now, the sting from this specific scorpion,
the Stripe-tail, is no more potent than that of a honeybee.
But even still, this is not something
that you ever wanna go out and try to pick up
like you just saw me do.
But they are so quick that they run all over the place,
and I kinda figured that the only way I could get 'em
up close for the camera was to actually pick him up.
Now what's really difficult about handling
a scorpion this small is that when I tailed it,
I had to actually grab the knuckle
that's right where the tail meets the vesicle.
Now the vesicle is what's holding all of the venom,
and then of course, they have a stinger right on the end.
Let's see if I can get him to walk up on this rock here.
Arright, you got your shot? - [Voiceover] Um-hmm.
- I'm gonna let it go, arright?
- [Voiceover] Yep. - One, two, three!
Don't get too close!
But to identify this little arachnid,
just look for a series of dark stripes on the tail.
My favorite part of any scorpion encounter
is always the release.
And with one species down,
our search continued into the night.
Giant Desert Hairy, right here.
Ho, look at the size a'that one!
Wow, that is a big scorpion.
I'm just gonna tail 'em.
These ones are a lot easier to tail
than the little ones.
Got 'em.
- [Voiceover] Awesome.
- Woo, hoo hoo!
- [Voiceover] Nice.
- Now this is the largest species of scorpion
that we have in the United States,
and here in the Sonoran Desert.
That is the Giant Desert Hairy scorpion.
And he also has his dinner in his mouth.
Look at that, he's eating a moth.
Now the way to easily tell the Giant Desert Hairy
apart from the other scorpions here in the Sonoran desert,
aside from how large they are,
is they have all of these little hairs.
See all those little hairs
on the vesicle around the stinger?
That's why they call 'em Hairy.
Now, scorpions, like all arachnids, have eight legs,
and these ones up front here, the pedipalps,
with the pincers on the end, that's actually just
a modified set of legs that helps them hunt.
Now scorpions are perfectly designed for this environment,
but they do have quite a few predators.
Rodents will eat them, lizards will eat them.
So, a scorpion of this size is much easier
for a predator to pick off than some of the smaller species.
Arright, let's get this guy back on his log,
so he can finish his moth dinner.
So far we've come across two different species of scorpions.
But to see the nail-biting conclusion,
click on the next video to watch me free handle
the most dangerous scorpion in America.
What I'm gonna do now is gently get this guy onto my hand,
to prove that scorpions aren't out there just to sting you.
(whooshing) (animal sounds)