clipping scorpion stingers

arachi american

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
45
so...

i work at prehistoric pets. i've worked there on and off for 5 years or so. there are plenty of people that will say plenty of bad things about the place, and the reason i've worked there, was to help change the conditions of the place i considered my local shop.

i'm not an "expert" or anything, but when i found flat rock scorpions at work with their stingers clipped, i had to ask who on earth would do that. turns out it was my boss and the shops owner, jay brewer. i confronted him on why he would do this and he said so they could be used at birthday parties. he said that he does it "all the time", and that "scorpions don't use their stingers to kill prey". i said "you've owned a herp shop for 20 years and never seen a scorpion sting a prey item"? of course he hadnt, that was ridiculous. i said you take the venom from a snake and it messes with its digestion, and he said "people devenomize snakes all the time its fine." personal feelings on THAT topic aside, people outside rural india dont just clip the fangs out of their mouths.

now, first of all, if you have to take a scorpion to a birthday party where kids are going to hold it, don't take one that is going to sting somebody. second, i've personally been stung by several flat rocks while doing these parties and never had more than a little red mark appear.

maybe i'm a little sensitive to the idea being that i'm watching a show about conflict diamonds and seeing images of people with their arms hacked off, but by the same logic, those people are fine. they dont need their arms for eating or breeding....

that was his argument, as long as they can breed and eat, its fine. am i in the wrong here?

btw you can email info@prehistoricpets.com if you'd like to share your thoughts with the owner.
 

Curry

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
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Apr 9, 2005
Messages
281
Scorpions and parties don't mix. Thats the worst idea I have ever heard of in my life... Even if the kids don't touch it I can only imagine it would stress the scorp out in some manner.

Now, god forbid the kid should try to touch it and happens to get stung and has an allergic reaction... What now?

Another thing.. I have heard the scorpions that don't often sting have VERY powerful claws and could probably hurt a kid. Not sure if its true but I heard there were cases where they could actually draw blood.

The owner is definitely wrong for clipping stingers.

Shame shame shame.
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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Jan 25, 2007
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there's a far-side cartoon about kids and a scorpion petting zoo. wish i could find it, seems totally applicable...:rolleyes:

other than that, i can see why people don't think too highly of the store. specially when the owners act like that...
 

arachi american

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
45
its not the point of kids and scorpions....you can bring an emperor or a flat rock to a house and let anyone hold them without getting them stung. if youre afraid of someone getting stung, don't send the scorpion. clipping the stinger is just barbaric.

and yes, i've had an emperor pinch me hard enough around the index finger to draw blood, and that was much more painful than being stung.
 

Vietnamese510

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
185
ad

it would die if you clipped it off beacuse it will be leaking
but i heard that if you burn the tip so it doesnt leak anymore it will be alive still

thats just what i heard

and i would never clip any of my scorpions stingers off
 

Ted

Arachnoprince
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Jul 7, 2007
Messages
1,187
i have a good friend who does tons of schools,libraries,etc a year, and makes a good living at it, does take emps to shows.
the rule is, no holding..people can watch him hold them if he choses to do so, but everyone else is off limits.
he's never been stung..and neither has anyone else at his shows.
i havent been stung at any of the presentations i've done, either.

i cant imagine doing that to a creature.:wall:
 

arachi american

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
45
it would die if you clipped it off beacuse it will be leaking
but i heard that if you burn the tip so it doesnt leak anymore it will be alive still

thats just what i heard

and i would never clip any of my scorpions stingers off
i should clarify...the entire last telson was not clipped, the tip (pointy part) was clipped off.

i'm not arguing that its life-threatening, just that it is barbaric and totally unnecessary.
 

PhilK

Arachnolord
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Sep 23, 2007
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Well inverts don't feel pain like people do, so we shouldn't anthropomorphize them. If they don't feel the pain, it would no longer be barbaric. Species like emps and flat rocks don't need to sting their prey (and there is most certainly no evidence their venom assists their digestion - otherwise they'd sting all prey items).

I should be clear I'm not supporting this bloke, he sounds like an absolute galah. If you wanna enjoy something beautiful like a scorpion, you don't chop bits off it!

Again, I'm not supporting this, but the scorp wouldn't feel pain and it would eventually stop leaking (same as we stop bleeding, I suppose). Scorpions in the wild survive without stingers - they could in captivity too.

I would of course be even more against someone who clipped the stingers off stinger-dependant species..
 

butch4skin

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Why would you assume that scorpions don't feel pain? They are simple creatures, but I imagine that the sensation of pain is one of the most primitive biological reactions. Scorpions obviously react differently to large amounts of pressure, pinching, and other forms of "aggression" than they do to mere "nudging". I assume they interpret these more aggressive "attacks", for lack of a better word, as physical sensation that can be likened to pain. Otherwise, what would be the instinctual incentive to react more defensively than when being merely "nudged". Scorpions have highly developed adaptations for detecting touch, I see no reason to believe that they don't experience physical pain.
 
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arachi american

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
45
Well inverts don't feel pain like people do, so we shouldn't anthropomorphize them. If they don't feel the pain, it would no longer be barbaric. Species like emps and flat rocks don't need to sting their prey (and there is most certainly no evidence their venom assists their digestion - otherwise they'd sting all prey items).

I should be clear I'm not supporting this bloke, he sounds like an absolute galah. If you wanna enjoy something beautiful like a scorpion, you don't chop bits off it!

Again, I'm not supporting this, but the scorp wouldn't feel pain and it would eventually stop leaking (same as we stop bleeding, I suppose). Scorpions in the wild survive without stingers - they could in captivity too.

I would of course be even more against someone who clipped the stingers off stinger-dependant species..
yes, they can survive...just like we can survive missing limbs. pain is a function of the central nervous system and as far as i was aware...arachnids HAVE central nervous systems.
 

Don&SallysZoo

Arachnosquire
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Oct 10, 2007
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Regardless of whether or not scorpions or (arachnids) in general feel pain or not why on earth would anyone clip their stingers off? That's like defanging venomous snakes. Here's the thing in my opinion if you can't handle the "hots" the way God created them, then maybe you shouldn't keep them.

Also scorpions + kids = bad mojo :embarrassed:

Just my thoughts....
 

RoachGirlRen

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Arthropods do not have a CNS, they have a ganglionic nervous system, but that is beside the point. Not long ago, people said that no animal but humans could experience pain, and went around nailing dogs to boards to "prove" it. A few years ago, we finally proved pain in fish (though apparently no one cares because the things we do to them still ammount to torture). I think it is very presumptuous to assume that "x animal" can't feel pain, especially when that animal clearly reacts to harmful stimuli. Pain has a vital evolutionary significance; being able to tell the difference between safe pressure and touch and dangerous pressure and touch is one of the basic fundamentals of survival.
However, even if scorpions do not feel pain, there is something deeply unsettling in the assumption that we can casually mutilate lesser animals for our own convenience. I'm really not too surprised though, considering the things that people do even to dogs and cats, which we supposedly love. And I'm additionally not surprised that it is happening in some pet store, seeing as the overwhelming majority of pet stores tend to be a fine example of all that is wrong in the pet keeping hobby and ESPECIALLY the exotics hobby.
 

PhilK

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yes, they can survive...just like we can survive missing limbs. pain is a function of the central nervous system and as far as i was aware...arachnids HAVE central nervous systems.
You'd be wrong there. They don't. That's why a cricket can lose a leg and not be bothered at all by it. If a person lost a leg they wouldn't keep running and functioning normally (well, they couldn't..)

RoachGirl: we know alot more about animals and nerves etc etc now than we did when people were nailing dogs to boards. Reacting to negative stimuli ('painful' stimuli, here) doesn't mean they can feel pain. They just know it is bad for them.

"being able to tell the difference between safe pressure and touch and dangerous pressure and touch is one of the basic fundamentals of survival" - that's not exactly right. There are millions of types of creature that cannot feel pain, and they've sruvived just fine.

Anyway, once again, I just wanna stress I don't support this at all
 

RoachGirlRen

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"Knowing it is bad for them" seems even more vague and unlikely than feeling pain, as knowing anything suggests an ability to think. I realize you're probably trying to say that the body "knows" it reflexively rather than the scorpion actively thinking about or experiencing the stimulus, though. I still, however, don't believe that we know enough about the experiences of other species to say conclusively that they do not (or for that matter definately do) feel pain, especially since we're finding out new things all the time regarding the sensory capacities of other species. You sortof make that point when you note that we've come a long way since nailing dogs to boards. But I would add that no matter how far we've come, we still don't know even a fraction of everything. Just the fact that we were questioning the ability of a fellow vertebrate like a fish to feel pain up until a few years ago shows how much we have yet to learn. As far as I'm concerned, if the jury is still out, it is safer to assume that an animal might feel pain so it should be treated humanely than assume that it definately doesn't. Or things like people mutilating scorpions tend to happen.
 

butch4skin

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A human being cannot continue running after losing a leg because a human beings body isn't equipped with a mechanism to stop bleeding of that magnitude on it's own. Your physiology would just breakdown. Plus, how the hell are you gonna run with one leg anyway? A cricket, on the other hand, will lose little to no hemolymph as a result of a lost leg. It's nothing to do with pain. A person can go into shock from bloodloss and not be able to move deliberately, but once agian, that has nothing to do with pain.

Arthropods do not have a CNS, they have a ganglionic nervous system, but that is beside the point. Not long ago, people said that no animal but humans could experience pain, and went around nailing dogs to boards to "prove" it. A few years ago, we finally proved pain in fish (though apparently no one cares because the things we do to them still ammount to torture). I think it is very presumptuous to assume that "x animal" can't feel pain, especially when that animal clearly reacts to harmful stimuli. Pain has a vital evolutionary significance; being able to tell the difference between safe pressure and touch and dangerous pressure and touch is one of the basic fundamentals of survival.
However, even if scorpions do not feel pain, there is something deeply unsettling in the assumption that we can casually mutilate lesser animals for our own convenience. I'm really not too surprised though, considering the things that people do even to dogs and cats, which we supposedly love. And I'm additionally not surprised that it is happening in some pet store, seeing as the overwhelming majority of pet stores tend to be a fine example of all that is wrong in the pet keeping hobby and ESPECIALLY the exotics hobby.
Exactly. I don't base what I've said on how complex an organisms nerve structure is, nor do I think it requires particularly complex nerve structure to create an organism capable of feeling physical pain. I've no doubt that some extremely simple animals such as sponges are unable to feel physical pain. These animals are highly sedentary, and show little or no reaction to anything, aside from growth and reproduction. But a creature that obviously reacts to stimuli interpreted as dangerous in a defensive or evasive manner? There must be chemical signals behind that instinctive behavior. Why wouldn't they be the physical sensation of pain?
 

PhilK

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1. A person can go into shock from bloodloss and not be able to move deliberately, but once agian, that has nothing to do with pain

2. ... and show little or no reaction to anything, aside from growth and reproduction
1. Humans can go into shock from pain. It is very common. Almost all "higher" animals can and do as well. Crickets don't when they lose legs, neither do scorpions or tarantulas. If a human's/dog's/horse's etc leg was cut off (ignoring the massive blood loss - let's say it is staunched) they could still pass out from pain, and/or go into shock. Won't see an invert do that.

2. One of the criteria for something to be called alive is that it reacts to its environment (this includes negative stimuli). Just because the sponge doesn't yelp and run away when it is 'hurt', it doesn't mean it doesn't react to anything.

Just my two cents, and not trying to stir or anything.
 

butch4skin

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Actually, you are right that someone can go into shock from pain, but regardless of whether or not a person goes into shock from losing a leg, they will still be incapable of running for multiple reasons. Even if crickets don't go into shock from injury, if they were subject to the same fluid loss that we are upon losing a leg, they would die.
 
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kotex

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
14
hi Philk y don i try to clip off ur arm and see weather pain anot? and without a arm are u still able to do the things that u use to do nomally?.. just don tink wat u say is correct. scorpion is a living thing too just like humans .
 
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