emp handling

[pitbulllady]

I tail my scorps when I need(note the word NEED)to handle them. I personally believe you'd be a LOT more likely to be pinched or stung, or both, if you cupped a scorpion, since they really seem to react to something coming down over them. That's basically what a predator would do, and so naturally they're put on the defensive when that happens. I've been stung once by an Emp, and it's no worse than a mosquito bite. It itched for about 15 minutes, raised up a little red welt, then was gone, but a pinch, on the other hand, will draw blood. I lost a thumbnail once due to a pinch from one of my Emps. The force was strong enough to break blood vessels underneath the nail bed, and it felt like I'd slammed my thumb in a car door! There's a LOT of p.s.i. in those claws! My H. spinifer female snapped a Sharpie marker in two with her claws while I was trying to take her babies away(they were several weeks old and had gone through several instars, and I was worried that she'd eat them, silly me), so I've learned not to underestimate the power of these large scorpions' pinchers! I'd rather be stung than pinched by an Emperor anytime! Still, my Emps don't seem to react much if I quickly tail them and lift them up so their legs are off the ground and quickly place them on my hand, though occasionally one will give my hand a little "experimental" pinch-not bad, just like it's "testing" this strange new substrate to see if it's stable enough to walk on or something. They will check out new things in their enclosure the same way. The only scorps I don't tail are my Hadogenes sp., since I'm concerned that those puny-looking little tails might not be able to support their weight and might break, and my old female H. paudicens is so mellow that I can just sorta use an envelope or something to gently push her onto my outstretched hand. She really doesn't react much to anything other than a cricket or water getting on her, which she hates.

pitbulllady