They watch their prey in the hot deserts of Africa and the snow-covered Himalayas. They are feared in Asia and Europe. How dangerous are they, scorpions? The legendary hunter Orion, the son of Poseidon, became proud and said that he had no equal in this world and he would kill any animal that he met. As soon as he was silent, an inconspicuous, nondescript scorpion approached his feet, raised its sting and wounded the brave and brave man, poisoning him with poison. The gods of Olympus, much frightened by Orion's boast, rejoiced at his death and in gratitude transferred the scorpion to heaven, placing it among the constellations of the Zodiac. Even here, in the sky, Orion will hide from his killer until the end of centuries: as soon as the constellation Scorpio appears in the sky, Orion hides behind the horizon …
It is possible that this myth, which tells how a scorpion punished a proud man and a dork who threatened beasts and gods, is the only good story told about a scorpion over the past several thousand years. Since time immemorial, these small, unpleasant-looking creatures have embodied pain, misfortune and death. All the peoples of the world class them among the most harmful and terrible creatures that kill on the sly. In the books of the Old Testament, the scorpion marks a terrible punishment: King Rehoboam, son of Solomon, threatens his subjects: "My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions" (1 Kings 12, 14).
Professor Gary Polis, a renowned American biologist, looks at these poisonous creatures from a completely different angle. For over twenty years, Polis has been teaching students at UC Davis about the strange and wonderful life of scorpions. These poisonous creatures captivated him once and for all: “Well, you can not love them. But after all, animals sometimes show us an amazing example of how you can survive in the most unfit for this conditions. The same scorpions have amazingly adapted to the unfavorable environment, and we endlessly ask ourselves: how did they manage to do this? Gary Polis's favorites are among the oldest creatures that inhabit our planet. More than 400 million years ago, giant scorpions already lived in the waters of the oceans. They reached a meter in length. About 300 million years ago, scorpions - one of the first creatures - made their way to land. They decreased in size, but retained their shape; that has remained unchanged to this day.
It was not difficult for paleontologists to trace the evolution of scorpions - these "mafusail" in the world of invertebrates. The point is one interesting property of these animals "if you send a stream of ultraviolet light to a scorpion, it will begin to fluoresce, emitting blue, pink or green tones. In the same way, the remains of prehistoric scorpions begin to flicker. This discovery was made in the sixties of the last century. Scientists have received the ability to observe the secret life of scorpions. Previously, these secretive creatures, showing activity only at night, successfully eluded the attention of zoologists. It is very difficult to detect them with the “naked eye.” “I can freeze in place, knowing that a scorpion is sitting nearby, but I still don't see him,”Gary Polis complains."But at night - thanks to the ultraviolet light - I can see it a few meters away."
Scientists are still arguing about why nature has endowed scorpions with such a strange feature, made them flare up under ultraviolet rays, like road signs flashing warning us of danger. Some zoologists believe that in this way scorpions lure insects to themselves, ready to flock to meet the rainbow glow. Be that as it may, this feature was approved by evolution, and now it helps scientists to reveal the secrets of the behavior of scorpions - arthropods from the order of arachnids. So, let's hurry towards the greenish shimmer of night scorpions.
They usually settle in places unsuitable for human habitation - for example, in hot, harsh deserts, where, at first glance, there is no food or water. For example, scorpions are swarming in the Mexican town of Baia California, on a narrow coastal spit south of the American border city of San Diego. According to Gary Polis's calculations, about a dozen scorpions can be found here on every square meter, buried in the sand to protect themselves from the heat. Woe to the one who decides to spread a sleeping bag here, seduced by the deceptive peace that surrounds him. The biomass of scorpions in Bahia California and many other desert areas exceeds the mass of all other desert inhabitants combined: mice, lizards, rats and even coyotes. Desert scorpions - unlike their fellow tribesmen who live in the jungle and choose trees for residence,- are real "couchpotatoes", "couch potatoes", "nodules". So, in the same Baia California, scorpions - the threat of careless travelers - spend almost their entire life buried in the sand. They lie down and sit out 92-97 percent of the time allotted to them for life.
Only sometimes, at night, these pale yellow creatures crawl out of their hiding places and again freeze motionless, numbly waiting for their prey. They seem to be some kind of statues, freaks, unable to move. It is hard to believe that they can catch someone, overtake someone, attack someone - except perhaps a sleeping traveler. However, nature has endowed them with an amazing sensory system - a kind of seismograph, for which the quietest flapping of the wings of a moth flying not far away is like a "desert storm". On the legs of a scorpion, the "claws" with which it grabs prey, there are the most sensitive hairs that register the slightest shaking of the air. Scorpio, with the accuracy of a sniper equipped with a night vision device, will determine where the moth is, and at the right moment will nimbly seize prey, despite the complete darkness.
Gary Polis's colleague, Philip Brownell, found that many scorpions also have slit-like organs on their feet that detect any fluctuations in the ground and localize the location of possible prey. Scorpio eats everything that it can put into its mouth: moths, spiders, small lizards, mice, a variety of insects and even its fellow tribesmen - those that are smaller and weaker.
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Scorpios willingly eat each other. “They are natural born cannibals,” says Gary Polis. “Ten percent of their diet, and by weight as much as twenty-five percent, are their own brethren. Sometimes, like the divine Kronos, they even eat their children. The one who gaps perishes, the big one devours the small - such laws reign in the merciless desert. Animals inhabiting the same area (a well-defined area of distribution of any animal) always wage a desperate struggle for survival, exterminating their competitors in the struggle for food, because its resources are limited. The wolf kills the fox, the lion kills the hyena, and the scorpion kills the scorpion,”Polis draws a line under the martyrology of gastronomy. We used to call the lion the king of beasts. Equally rightly, we can call a tiny (1-20 cm), nondescript scorpion "the sultan of the desert." Zoologists,those who study it never cease to be amazed at its adaptability. The scorpion's body has learned to lose almost no water at all. “His water loss has been reduced to zero,” says Gary Polis. Scorpio almost never drinks. He gets all the liquid he needs from swallowed food. Digesting it, he sucks out all the juices from there, spewing out from himself after the meal only a pinch of powder - as dry as the sand of the desert.
Scorpio also holds another record: it is more efficient than any other creature, it processes and assimilates the obtained food. Seventy percent of his food intake replenishes his body tissues. For comparison, let's say that the body of our children assimilates only five percent of the lunches and breakfasts that we serve them. The rest is ballast, excess substances released by the body. In a scorpion, as we can see, in its "internal economy" any little thing will come in handy. Everything adds strength and agility to him. We also note that a scorpion, like no other creature, is able to be content with little and, in case of inevitability, to do without food at all. He can starve for a year! - and more. So, researchers have reported cases where captured scorpions starved for a couple of years without visible harm to themselves. One captured moth is enough for a scorpion for several months. Now it is clear why in the Mexican sands, where prey is rare and accidental, a dozen scorpions can live on one square meter. Let us recall, however, that for the weakest of them such a neighborhood is deadly.
So, the scorpion hardly eats or drinks anything and therefore, as we have already said, hardly moves. Lies, hiding in shelter or buried in the sand, and slowly digests food. Their body, as if frozen in suspended animation, almost does not wear out. These "slobber" live up to 25 years - that is, they live longer than any other arachnids, than insects and even some birds and mammals. In the Afghan sands, scorpions still indifferently sit, watching the entry of Soviet troops. The reason for the longevity of scorpions, of course, lies in the astonishingly poor metabolism. Its performance is lower than that of any other fauna. Gary Polis once compared a scorpion sticking out of the sand to a sugar beet root sticking out of the ground. Both organisms - both plant and animal - are a kind of "vessels" that accumulate nutrients.
And in one more discipline our acquaintances break all records. No living creature is as sensitive to light as a scorpion. Recent studies have shown that in order to navigate in the dark, the faint light of the stars is enough for him, which does not in the least dissipate the darkness of the southern night. However, these ominous "lazybones" are familiar not only with the southern night.
In nature, there are about one and a half thousand species of scorpions, and not all of them live in hot deserts. They live almost everywhere: in the snows of the Himalayas, at an altitude of about 5000 meters, and in caves, at a depth of about 800 meters, in the tropical jungle and European forests. So, in the south of Germany, Euscorpius germanus grows light brown or brown. In southern France, in the crevices of the walls, Euscorpius flavicaudis freezes, waiting for some kind of midge or louse. How dangerous are scorpions? Alfred Brehm wrote that "the poisonousness of a scorpion … is greatly exaggerated by popular rumor, as well as by many researchers and writers." However, the threat cannot be underestimated either. Scorpions kill more people than any other animal, excluding snakes and bees. True, there are no reliable statistics, but, according to experts,every year from three to five thousand people leave their lives due to the fault of "a small, nondescript scorpion." In Mexico alone, at least eight hundred people die every year.
The local peasants often fall prey to scorpions right at home - they like to hide in the thatched roofs that cover the huts of day laborers and farm laborers. Scorpion venom collects numerous tributes in the tropical countries of Africa, South America, and India. This geography is by no means accidental. The poisonousness of scorpions, like snakes, strongly depends on the climate of the area: the hotter it is, the more dangerous the poison is. True, not all fifteen hundred species of scorpions are dangerous for us, but only twenty-five of them, whose poisonous glands contain enough toxins to send us to the next world. The poison of these creatures will not necessarily torment a person for a long time, "forcing him to remain in agony for three days," as Pliny the Elder once wrote. Sometimes people die from a scorpion injection in just a few hours.
All killer scorpions belong to the same genus - Buthus, which has chosen a special evolutionary path that sharply distinguishes them from other scorpions "slothful". Gary Polis notes that "their life cycle is more like the life cycle of some short-lived insect." Scorpions of the genus Buthus are smaller than other tribesmen, they die earlier, but they reproduce more often and faster than them. They usually hide not on the ground - in burrows, hollows, holes - but in trees, hiding among the foliage and waiting for prey, which is more frequent here than below. “We need to be especially careful with small scorpions, endowed, at first glance, with short, narrow pincers that do not inspire fear,” advises Gary Polis. A reliable serum has long been invented against the paralytic venom of scorpions, which consists of more than thirty neurotoxins. It was made from the poison of the scorpions themselves. So, the bites of most of them are relatively safe for humans. However, the word “safe” does not mean “painless”. People suffer from the bite of these arachnid creatures for several days. The wound immediately swells, sweat comes out profusely, the temperature rises. The patient is shaking with a fever.
All this Gary Polis knows from his own experience. Thousands of times he watched scorpions, studied them, collected, methyl - and seven times did not save himself. How did he feel about it? “It feels like a dozen red-hot needles were stuck into you and started to rotate. Horror! " In 1991, Polis's experience came in handy during the "Gulf War" Then the Pentagon turned to a scientist to find out how to protect the American army soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia from scorpions. The answer was simple, but very accurate: "Shake out your boots and clothes every day!" Scorpios love to hide in things that belong to a person, and therefore, when dressing in the morning, you should carefully check the contents of objects scattered overnight. There may be a scorpion that has already prepared a portion of the poison.
By the way, not only people, lizards, insects, but also male scorpions are awarded with a portion of the poison. Most large females put an end to a short romance, piercing their unlucky lover with a sting, and then seizing the bitterness of memories with his little body. The romantic dinner is preceded by a very interesting scene - "Scorpio marriage". Clutched by pincers, both animals dance for a long time, twitching in one direction, then in the other. It can take half an hour, or maybe several nights in a row. Finally, having stumbled upon a blade of grass or a pebble, the male lays on it his spermatophore - a bag of liquid - and then drags his partner over it. The pouch with its contents disappears into her body. The novel is over, the husband bows and leaves if he can do it. Twenty percent of scorpions disappear without a trace after a love hug. Why do females treat them so cruelly? "Why not?" - Gary Polis answers the question with a question. - The female loses nothing by eating her lover for dessert. All the same, no good from him. He will not help her raise her children. " But he himself will devour everything that moves nearby. Fewer freeloaders mean healthier offspring.
Pregnancy of a female scorpion lasts from three to eighteen months. She carries her young at times longer than many mammals. And here's another biological surprise, unlike other invertebrates, scorpions do not lay eggs, but, like an animal, produce live offspring. Each litter has an average of about twenty-five scorpions. For some time, before the first molt, the babies spend on the mother's back, but then she cools down to them. Now it behooves them to scatter hastily so as not to become victims of the mother's indiscriminate appetite. They have more than enough enemies. The flesh of scorpions is prized by owls and snakes, bats and lizards.
Some of these “spicy drinkers” are immune to scorpion toxins. Others manage to break off the scorpion's sting, and then they already swallow its defenseless body. If it were not for these strange gourmets, savoring proteins with poison with a bite, and if not for the intraspecific cannibalism of scorpions, their tribe could fill the entire planet. Then people, like traveling to other deserted places, would not take a step without the risk of stumbling upon a poisonous sting. But the tribe of scorpions on our planet is still so numerous that it still awakens ancient, unceasing fears in the souls of people. “The reputation of a scorpion cannot be improved,” Gary Polis grumbles. "She's hopelessly flawed." You cannot be forcibly sweet - all the more so with a secret sting.
And yet, no matter how we scold these fierce and disgusting creatures, no matter how we fear these inconspicuous killers crawling into our clothes and trapping us in the sand, we cannot but pay tribute to them, following the example of Gary Polis. Their phenomenal vitality has allowed them to inhabit the poorest corners of the planet for over four hundred million years. Perhaps, no other species of living beings in the entire history of our Earth has fought for a "place in the sun" with such enthusiasm and energy! And evolution spared him. Endlessly mowing one species of animals after another, she invariably kept the scorpion, or, more precisely, this cunning creature every time coped with the tasks that the changing nature put before him. Scorpio is alive and well. He is ready to forget about drinking and food, just to live for himself and live, lie in his burrow, hiding. He wanted to survive so badly that evolution gave way to him. Scorpions were well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The habits of this evil animal were legendary. It was said about him that he eats all of his cubs - except for one, which climbs onto his father's back and devours him. Indeed, baby scorpions love to climb on the back of one of the parents - not to the father, but to the mother. It is also true that they will not disdain and eat each other if they are hungry.baby scorpions love to climb on the back of one of the parents - not to the father, but to the mother. It is also true that they will not disdain and eat each other if they are hungry.baby scorpions love to climb on the back of one of the parents - not to the father, but to the mother. It is also true that they will not disdain and eat each other if they are hungry.
According to Pseudo Callisthenes, especially large scorpions were found in the vicinity of the Ganges River. They were about the size of a cubit. Meeting them was terrifying. But there was no reason to fear the small European, or Carpathian, scorpion. Its bite is no worse than a wasp bite, it will not cause much harm even to a child. The northern border of its habitat is Tyrol and the Carpathians. It is about him that one of Aesop's fables says: a stupid boy decided to catch a locust, but instead he grabbed a scorpion, and he generously spared the prankster.
Aristotle quite correctly describes the European species of scorpions. He points out quite correctly that they give birth to live young - "egg-shaped worms." Scorpio very early penetrates magic and astrology. It is present among the oldest Babylonian calendar drawings. So, around 1150 BC, a scorpio man appears in the circle of zodiac figures.
The Romans had battle badges depicting a scorpion. This is explained by astrological beliefs. It was believed that the founders and destroyers of cities were born when a scorpion raised its sting above the horizon. As an example, we can mention the emperor born under this sign and the brilliant commander Tiberius. The constellation of Scorpio brought misfortune. With his appearance, autumn reigned in the sky and troubles came: the cold bound the earth, rains and storms whipped it, and wars devastated, burned and destroyed all living things.
Among the Egyptians, the goddess Serket was considered the ruler of the scorpions: she was portrayed with the head of a scorpion or with a human head on which a scorpion sat. Appearing in a dream, the scorpion foreshadowed evil. But he could also protect from the evil eye and from other troubles. According to Byzantine legend, Amasia had a talisman in the shape of a scorpion. He guarded the city from other scorpions and their relatives.
In the east of Asia Minor, where the city of Amasya lay, as in Africa, Persia, the Levant, scorpions were a real disaster. Despite strict religious prohibitions, the Jews were allowed to kill scorpions on the Sabbath, even if they did not intend to attack a person.
And how did people escape, who were already bitten by scorpions? It was easy to cure a European scorpion bite, a rather harmless creature. All that was required was a bloodletting. The wounds inflicted by African scorpions turned out to be much more dangerous - it was impossible to do without careful treatment. The oil in which the scorpion was drowned was thought to be the best. Another useful recipe: you need to burn a scorpion or grind it into powder; then take this ash (or powder) orally with water, or sprinkle it on the wound. If these remedies did not help, then even doctors resorted to witchcraft, relying on a meaningless set of spells.
