The life of an Asian forest scorpion

[DanielAcorn]

I am fascinated by the AFS, but I know very little about it in the wild. I've really enjoyed Snark's comments here and there on the forum about the lived they lead, but I would love to learn more...

.How effective is AFS armour
.Can they fight bigger animals
.What is the point of their big stinger if they don't use it much. Is it more of a threat?
.How do they live
.how did they evolve and where did they come from

The list is obviously endless. If there's any books on scorpions that would also be helpful. The best one I've found is 'Scorpions of the world' which I'm saving up for.

Scorpions are DARN amazing. I'm recently obsessed by them. They've been around since the Silurian period - just wow. They almost seem 'over-adapted' due to the fact that they can survive in so many extreme situations.

Why the scorpion is what is and why it's so effective, is so interesting.

Sorry I'll stop ranting!

 

[The Snark]

Captive bred is creating a divergent species. In the wild, animals have evolved and developed certain traits in accordance and response to their environments. If the environment is a theoretical ideal natural selection is inevitably skewed. Thousands of lab born, raised and bred tests clearly bear this out. Less adversity, less diversity.
The differences between various genus and species among scorpionidae is a direct product of divergence due to interaction with the environment. Eventually a scorpion without palps or telson could evolve.

(I've been having a series of talks with a guest professor at a local university. He's spent much of his career studying and theorizing on Darwin's findings. Wish I had met him when I was gagging down bio-science. Fanatical theorists are so endearing and fascinating. Especially so when his grasp of science extends to precision machining and botany to wit, 'As long as molecules are in motion there can be no such thing as a perfect reference surface'. Take that tree (name in Thai I can't even pronounce). It's fruit evolved into being so heavy the ordinary branches could not bear the weight. So it evolved, now growing flower and fruit directly out of the trunk.)

 

[DanielAcorn]

That's super interesting. Makes you question the whole concept of 'type specimen'.

 

[DanielAcorn]

And... To be honest though, the fact that the general template of a scorpion has lasted 400 + million years is remarkable.

 

[The Snark]

And... To be honest though, the fact that the general template of a scorpion has lasted 400 + million years is remarkable.

I want to know how and why they created the new clade from decapodal to octopodal with pedialps instead of chelipeds. What was the transition period and how long did it last? The cambrian explosion must have produced some amazingly weird prototypes.

And the great gkarckle did proclaim, everybody with odd number of legs get out of the gene pool!
And the trilobites complained, I can't count and I keep changing.