Thursday, February 12, 2015

Glowing scorpions


When I was in grad school I had the pleasure of learning how to go "black lighting" for scorpions. Many people do not realize this, but scorpions have proteins in their exoskeletons that react to ultra-violet light, and cause them to "fluoresce" or glow under a black light lamp. This is very useful for scorpion hunting, because scorpions - which are typically well camouflaged - are easy to find at night as long as you have a black light.

In this instance, we were exploring Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California.


A scorpion, obvious in the undergrowth.


Scorpion under regular flashlight...


And under a black light.

And here is a video of one of my mentors catching the scorpion. He didn't mind, and perhaps even enjoyed grabbing stinging arthropods and mentions this one stung him when he captured it.





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