It’s easy to not give too much thought to all of those critters that we don’t see.
When I slowly and carefully turned over a large piece of bark during a bush-walk the other day (when turning over logs and rocks, always turn them away from you), I don’t really know what I was expecting to find. But I do know what I was not expecting – scorpions. Four scorpions to be exact! I know I wasn’t expecting it because I started to shriek excitedly to my fellow walkers and I know they weren’t expecting it, because they started to run towards me and my new friends. Scorpions in the Illawarra, who knew?
Scorpions, like spiders, are arachnids. They have a bit of a fearsome reputation but in Australia, our scorpions are relatively harmless. Make no mistake, the sting is extremely painful and medical care should be sought if you’re unlucky enough to be stung, but we don’t have the lethal species that are found in some other parts of the world.
And they’re not relegated just to the arid parts of the country but can be found in wetter areas of forest or – like the Marbled Scorpions that I unearthed – at home under rocks and logs in gum-lined bush habitat.
They’re nocturnal and a particularly fun way to spot them is to take out a UV (black) light at night, sweeping it across the ground and look for a flash of colour. You see, scorpions fluoresce (glow a kind of blue colour) under ultraviolet light! Finally, a re-use for the little torch that comes in some RAT-testing kits!
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