Speaker 1: Bienantma got boga on the haartnir, the Hola, the hayman
Speaker 1: A he call ah ersuen as lance La Dani Detained,
Speaker 1: Nudovshutarhu La Hula, schamparods on udos ors lanse Is Phaser,
Speaker 1: Latgun's throw, Tasha Tapa, Sierra, Nashka avad is FuGO more
Speaker 1: hey rig hi a punk i e is called RelA
Speaker 1: on tudoros or Raslenza. If we real this in the heron,
Speaker 1: Oh hey.
Speaker 2: It's a lady in front of you in the check
Speaker 2: out with twenty six items who doesn't realize she's in
Speaker 2: the express lane and is fully oblivious to your Clare's
Speaker 2: ali ward so Hi. This is an episode of Smology's
Speaker 2: which we've made classrooms safe so you can listen with
Speaker 2: your little ones. So the full episodes are obviously a
Speaker 2: little more spicier, more in detail, but smologies are safe
Speaker 2: to listen to around anyone. So I hope you enjoy this.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for the full length version, it's linked
Speaker 2: in the show notes. Okay, scrapyaogy, Yes, this is a
Speaker 2: real ology. It's a subset of arachnology, Iraqnans and Scorpion
Speaker 2: comes from the Greek. Are you ready for this? For scorpion? Okay,
Speaker 2: that is not something that made me say, oh my god.
Speaker 2: All right, we cover myths about scorpions, what big pinchers mean,
Speaker 2: movie magic, how lethal are these critters? Glow in the
Speaker 2: dark magic? And also where is their butt? So bust
Speaker 2: out your black light, keep your ears on alert for
Speaker 2: stem advocate, science communicator, researcher, expedition leader and curator at
Speaker 2: the California Academy of Sciences. Scorpiologist doctor Lauren Esposito.
Speaker 3: Knowlogio alogy, pologyglogies.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you are I looked this up. You're in
Speaker 2: Iraq tchnologists. Yes, but I saw that there is a
Speaker 2: subset that is scorpiology.
Speaker 4: There is scorpiology, so I'm technically speaking as scorpiologists.
Speaker 2: Now, at what point when you were studying them, did
Speaker 2: you say, holy not alroady, these are cool?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: It was really it started when I was doing that
Speaker 4: undergraduate internship and I realized, like, man, scorpions are amazing
Speaker 4: for so many reasons.
Speaker 2: Oo boy, how did you get ready for this? Okay?
Speaker 5: Here we go, Here we go. One.
Speaker 4: They were the first terrestrial arthropod predators, so before anything
Speaker 4: else was on land, scorpions came on land.
Speaker 5: These little beasts.
Speaker 4: They weren't little then. They were like the ancestors of
Speaker 4: scorpions were like a meter.
Speaker 5: They were huge three feet yeah, three feet maybe even bigger.
Speaker 4: And they were these like underwater marine predators that were
Speaker 4: like ruling the oceans at the time. And eventually some
Speaker 4: people have hypothesized that because we found these ancient trackways
Speaker 4: alongside rivers of scorpions, little footprints embedded in rock. Well
Speaker 4: it was mud that turned into rock over time, and
Speaker 4: they've hypothesized that they were actually became amphibious and were
Speaker 4: coming up on the land to eat spawning fish. Oh,
Speaker 4: like grizzlies, right, you know, grizzlies like come in the
Speaker 4: river and eat the spawning fish. They were doing the
Speaker 4: same thing, but they were like the size of grizzlies,
Speaker 4: and they were scorpions.
Speaker 3: It comes to scorpions, the bigger the better.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I literally am having like a vertigo,
Speaker 2: Like I can't just imagining a scorpion the size of
Speaker 2: like a kiddie pool, just.
Speaker 5: Like like an alligator, basically like an alligator. They were
Speaker 5: these things.
Speaker 4: They were called eurypterids, the ancestors of scorpions, and eventually
Speaker 4: the gills that they had to breathe underwater were internalized
Speaker 4: and that allowed them to live on land. And so
Speaker 4: the scorpions of today basically look identical to the scorpions
Speaker 4: of four hundred and fifty million years ago. So they've
Speaker 4: been on Earth forever, right, So we can ask all
Speaker 4: kinds of questions about what happened on Earth in the
Speaker 4: last four hundred and fifty million years by trying to
Speaker 4: understand the evolutionary history of scorpions.
Speaker 2: And so, how do you think they got and littler well, there's.
Speaker 4: Like the main driving factor behind why insects and arachnids
Speaker 4: are not as big as they used to be, as
Speaker 4: big as the fossils we find is the oxygen percentage
Speaker 4: in the air in the atmosphere, because scorpions and spiders
Speaker 4: and insects all basically passively respire, so they don't breathe.
Speaker 4: They don't have lungs where they're breathing in and out,
Speaker 4: and they don't have closed circulatory systems. They just kind
Speaker 4: of have blood that gets pumped around by a heart
Speaker 4: just open up in their body. And so the rate
Speaker 4: at which oxygen can get to all their tissues that
Speaker 4: they need for walking around and moving and eating and
Speaker 4: doing all the things. Is limited by how much concentration
Speaker 4: of oxygen there is in the air, and over time
Speaker 4: the oxygen concentration has gone down.
Speaker 2: So Laurie explained that when life started coming on land
Speaker 2: and there were more and more air breathing critters, the
Speaker 2: carbon dioxide output increased and the oxygen levels went down.
Speaker 2: So when you have less fuel, you downsize. So think
Speaker 2: of turning in a hummer for a Fiat but slowly
Speaker 2: as a result of evolution. Okay, So apart from the
Speaker 2: last four hundred and fifty million years of history, where
Speaker 2: can we find scorpions? And so where do scorpions live?
Speaker 2: Clearly not in New York City, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: They live basically everywhere that there's not major freezes for
Speaker 4: long parts of the year.
Speaker 5: Okay, So like like, imagine a place it's scorpions and
Speaker 5: you're not unaware.
Speaker 4: There's probably scorpions there. They're not in Antarctica. They're also
Speaker 4: not in the Arctic because it's cold, it's like snow
Speaker 4: on the ground all year round.
Speaker 5: But they are in places like the Alps.
Speaker 4: So you wouldn't expect them to be in the Alps
Speaker 4: or like the upper reaches of the Andes, like in Argentina,
Speaker 4: there's scorpions. My real area of specialty is the neotropics,
Speaker 4: so I go to the Caribbeans, the Central America, South America,
Speaker 4: but I've been to places like islands off the coast
Speaker 4: of Equatorial Africa, Southeast A.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I've been like all over the world
Speaker 5: looking for those little buggers.
Speaker 2: And now, tell me a little bit about the basic
Speaker 2: structure of a scorpion, Like what are we dealing with,
Speaker 2: because I feel like they got crab in the front,
Speaker 2: they got snake face in the back with the venom.
Speaker 4: Like they got the business end in the box. Yeah, what,
Speaker 4: it's like a mullet, right. So, so scorpions, like all oraknas,
Speaker 4: have have two primary body parts. They have a pro soma,
Speaker 4: which is like the head, and they have a pistosoma,
Speaker 4: which is like the body.
Speaker 5: So they picture a spider.
Speaker 4: There's two main chunks, but scorpions have this extra little
Speaker 4: business end, which is the tail, and their pro soma
Speaker 4: and a pistosoma are sort of fused, so there's not
Speaker 4: like a real delineation between the head and the body,
Speaker 4: and then up in the front they have two pairs
Speaker 4: of appendages they have callissary, which are the mouth parts,
Speaker 4: and they have these chewing mouthparts that they use basically
Speaker 4: to like.
Speaker 5: Rip up meat meat before they get it down their gullet.
Speaker 2: And so their eyes are on the top of their head.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like facing up towards the sky.
Speaker 4: How many eyes do they have, It depends, but usually
Speaker 4: they all almost all have three sets of eyes, two
Speaker 4: in the middle and then a set of three to
Speaker 4: six in each corner of the front of their head,
Speaker 4: and so they're arranged like in a triangle. Some people
Speaker 4: have hypothesized that they use the triangular array of eyes
Speaker 4: to look up into the night sky and navigate by
Speaker 4: the stars.
Speaker 2: Oh my stars. Now, for those who enjoy a good
Speaker 2: crossword puzzle word or are choked for conversation on a
Speaker 2: long car ride, navigating by stars is called astromenotaxis. Astrominotaxis
Speaker 2: there you know that now.
Speaker 4: And then they have claws that they use mostly for
Speaker 4: grabbing on to prey like in some scorpions.
Speaker 5: They just use the clause to grab their prey.
Speaker 4: They don't ever actually need to sing them because they
Speaker 4: have these big, chunky claws, like picture those those big
Speaker 4: black emperor scorpions that you see in the movies all
Speaker 4: the time. They have these huge claws up front, and
Speaker 4: they almost never use their tail, and their venom's not
Speaker 4: very toxic. But other scorpions have these really slender, thin
Speaker 4: claws and they really just use those for manipulating prey
Speaker 4: items and mostly use the tail and really powerful, super
Speaker 4: toxic venom for disabling their prey and escaping predators. Claws
Speaker 4: in the front, tail on the back, and at the
Speaker 4: very end of the tail is the stinger, and the
Speaker 4: stinger is a looks kind of like a bulb, like
Speaker 4: a light bulb, and at the end of that is
Speaker 4: a hypodermic needle, and inside of the bulb is a
Speaker 4: layer of secretory cells, so cells that secrete toxins, and
Speaker 4: it's surrounded by muscle that allows them to squeeze those
Speaker 4: toxins out of the cells into the hypodermic needle that
Speaker 4: they use to inject into their prey.
Speaker 2: Okay, so their venom bulb is kind of like one
Speaker 2: of those little squirty things you would jam into your
Speaker 2: ear hole to flesh out funky chunks only it's a
Speaker 2: nerve toxin made by DNA that they probably had for
Speaker 2: something else but evolved to become venom. So what is
Speaker 2: in this exactly?
Speaker 4: But the really crazy thing is that their venom is
Speaker 4: not just one thing. It's actually a complex cocktail of
Speaker 4: all sorts of different components. And they have things like
Speaker 4: antimicrobials in there, enzymes that break open tissue and help
Speaker 4: them digest, and then they also have these complex neuropeptides.
Speaker 4: And neuropeptides are basically things that, when they interact with
Speaker 4: your nervous system, tell your nerves to either send a
Speaker 4: signal when there's not supposed to be sending a signal,
Speaker 4: or they inhibit the transmission of signals between cells.
Speaker 2: Neuropeptides, by the bye, are chains of amino acids that
Speaker 2: form these protein like molecules that your nervous system uses
Speaker 2: to communicate, and the neuropeptides bind to receptors and activate
Speaker 2: a bunch of events inside a neuron. The neuropeptides in
Speaker 2: venom can jack that system by cutting off the neurons
Speaker 2: from talking to each other or sending signals when they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be talking. So venom is like when someone grabs
Speaker 2: your phone and star Art's dming people it shouldn't, or
Speaker 2: withholding a text from your boss. Okay, what if you're
Speaker 2: like a cricket and you don't have a boss or
Speaker 2: a phone. What does that do if your prey?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so if your prey, what it might do is
Speaker 4: disable you, keep you from moving, send you into a seizure,
Speaker 4: really just dis incapacitate you very quickly so that you
Speaker 4: can be eaten and make baby scorpions mm hm with
Speaker 4: the energy that you get from your prey. But if
Speaker 4: you're a predator, what it does is it sends pain
Speaker 4: signals to your brain, telling your brain that you're on fire.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, we're hiring a fire sale. Oh my god,
Speaker 5: when you're really not.
Speaker 4: And that pause, that signal interruption caused by the scorpion
Speaker 4: venom allows the scorpion a moment to escape from the
Speaker 4: prey while the predator's reacting to this signal that it's
Speaker 4: forcing its body to send to itself.
Speaker 2: What types of scorpions have venom that is powerful enough
Speaker 2: to say incapacitate like a dog or a human? Like,
Speaker 2: how much do they get a bad rap?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Well, they get a pretty bad.
Speaker 4: Rap I would say overall, there's like, so far, we've
Speaker 4: discovered about twenty five hundred species of scorpions, give or take,
Speaker 4: and about twenty five of those are something that are
Speaker 4: a concern for a healthy human and there's maybe a
Speaker 4: dozen or two more that are a concern for people
Speaker 4: that have a compromise immune system or are elderly or
Speaker 4: very young. So the majority of scorpions, that means like
Speaker 4: less than ten percent of all scorpions are something that
Speaker 4: are really dangerous that.
Speaker 5: We need to be worried about.
Speaker 4: But that being said, all scorpions do have a stinger,
Speaker 4: and they can jab it into your body, and they
Speaker 4: can inject things that are in their venom, but oftentimes
Speaker 4: those things are more mild than a beasting or waspsing.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, let me step back and say there's two
Speaker 4: major groups of scorpions. There's a group called the boothed scorpions.
Speaker 4: It's one of the oldest lineages of scorpions, and it's
Speaker 4: also has the greatest number of species compared to all
Speaker 4: the other lineages, and those ones all make neurotoxins that
Speaker 4: affect mammals, So they make neurotoxins that can interact with
Speaker 4: our nervous system.
Speaker 2: Again, these are the boothids. And I looked everywhere to
Speaker 2: find out where the name boothed comes from, and I
Speaker 2: think it's from the Greek for ox or cow, because
Speaker 2: there's stings were thought to be real cow killers. Again boothheits.
Speaker 4: And then all the other scorpions are non boothieds ah,
Speaker 4: all the other groups of scorpions, and all those guys
Speaker 4: typically don't make neurotoxins that affect mammal nervous systems.
Speaker 2: But considering their reputation of scorpions, they do carry some
Speaker 2: dramatic names like the black spitting, thick tailed scorpion or
Speaker 2: the man killer or death stalker. These kind of sound
Speaker 2: like nineteen seventies carnival rides.
Speaker 4: But scientific names are jumped up by the scientists that
Speaker 4: first recognize that species.
Speaker 5: As being a new species.
Speaker 2: Have you gotten to name any I have?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well, we discover new scorpions all the time. There's like
Speaker 4: maybe fifty or so added a year.
Speaker 5: To my God for knowledge.
Speaker 2: Now, when you're discovering scorpions, I understand that there are
Speaker 2: black lights involved. There are, yeah, so tell me everything
Speaker 2: about why they fluoresce under black lights.
Speaker 4: So scorpions, all scorpions fluoress it's a universals to scorpions.
Speaker 4: What fluorescence means basically is that there's a pigment in
Speaker 4: the exoskeleton of scorpions that's embedded in there.
Speaker 5: It's called cormarine.
Speaker 2: So side note, cormorine is often found in plants, and
Speaker 2: according to this Wikipedia prose, it has quote a sweet
Speaker 2: odor resembling the scent of newly mown hay. It's also
Speaker 2: found in cassia, cinnamon, in fake vanilla, and in perfumes. Oh,
Speaker 2: and it makes venomous arthropods glow like ravers. Anyway, Cormorine what.
Speaker 4: It does is it takes in light waves just from light,
Speaker 4: ambient light, and it excites those white those light waves
Speaker 4: and then projects them back at a higher wavelength. So
Speaker 4: that's what causes the fluorescence. It's not like a reflection
Speaker 4: or it's actually like an excitation of lights. And so
Speaker 4: they all fluoresce this bright like neon toxic sludge green
Speaker 4: under a ultra violet light. And we don't really know
Speaker 4: why they have this feature. There's a few possibilities. One,
Speaker 4: it's just a byproduct of how their exoskeleton forms. Like
Speaker 4: the process in which they form their exoskeleton creates a fluorescence,
Speaker 4: or alternatively, it has like a function that's helpful for them,
Speaker 4: and there's a few possibilities. One that's been proposed is
Speaker 4: that it's a whole body light detection system, so it
Speaker 4: allows them to detect when there's light.
Speaker 5: Which I think could very well be.
Speaker 4: But also they have eyes, so typically they can see
Speaker 4: if there's light outside or not, so it could be
Speaker 4: another function as well. The other functions that have been
Speaker 4: thought up are that it's a way to tell other
Speaker 4: animals that they're dangerous, like bees are black and yellow,
Speaker 4: and that black and yellow is like a sign that
Speaker 4: they're dangerous. Scorpions are active at night and at night,
Speaker 4: colors don't show up very well, and things that are
Speaker 4: active at night can't see very well in color.
Speaker 5: Mm hm.
Speaker 4: So, so many things that are that are doing things
Speaker 4: at night have have evolved greater UV capabilities, and so
Speaker 4: flowers that bloom at night have a UV pattern that
Speaker 4: attracts pollinators.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: So scorpions that are active at night might want a
Speaker 4: UV pattern to say, hey, wait this I'm dangerous and
Speaker 4: you should stay away from me, like a warning color,
Speaker 4: or they're actually trying to mimic something else like a
Speaker 4: flower and attract things so that they can eat them.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, So those are all the possibilities.
Speaker 2: Do you think that their ancient ancestors that were ginormous
Speaker 2: could fluoresce?
Speaker 4: Well, there is some a geologists mention that there's some
Speaker 4: really well preserved fossils that preserved cuticle and the cuticle fluoresces.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So side note this is due to their glowing hyaline
Speaker 2: layer in their axis skeleton. Also, did you know that
Speaker 2: horseshoe crabs also glow under UV light. If someone wanted
Speaker 2: to go out and look for critters at night, do
Speaker 2: you think getting a black light and just checking things out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like in some places I saw them
Speaker 4: a home depot, you can go on a scorpion hunt.
Speaker 4: And the thing that the trick is to go out
Speaker 4: at night because one, you can't really see anything with
Speaker 4: the black light during the day because it's not a
Speaker 4: very bright wavelength of light, so it gets washed out
Speaker 4: by daylight. And two, scorpions are nocturnal, so they're active
Speaker 4: at night, not not during the day.
Speaker 2: Now, what about scorpions in movies or pop culture? Is
Speaker 2: there any movie that really does a good job with
Speaker 2: scorpions or one that really gets your goat?
Speaker 1: Do you know what?
Speaker 4: Like, I feel like there are always The problem I
Speaker 4: have with movies and scorpions is that they're always very inaccurate. Okay, like,
Speaker 4: why in every single movie does it have to be
Speaker 4: the Emperor scorpion. Emperor scorpions are from tropical Africa. They
Speaker 4: most definitely do not live in deserts. There's definitely no
Speaker 4: black scorpions living in a white sandy desert. Oh, it
Speaker 4: doesn't exist. They want to blend in with their environment.
Speaker 4: They're not trying to stand out like black on white background.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Are they ember of scorpions easier to handle? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean they're really common in the pet trade, and
Speaker 4: actually for that reason, they're the only scorpion that's considered
Speaker 4: to be threatened or endangered.
Speaker 5: Oh, like they can live to be twenty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like, lay off the scorpions.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like lay it, layoff of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the other crazy thing about scorpions that I always
Speaker 4: that I was struck by when I first learned about
Speaker 4: them is that the moms give birth to live baby.
Speaker 2: That was my next question. I've seen a picture of
Speaker 2: scorpions that are just to have a backpack full of
Speaker 2: baby scorpions. Yeah, what is happening there?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, So while their courtship starts by the what
Speaker 4: we call pa dey do they actually dance. They do
Speaker 4: like a ballroom dance. They're actually quite refined animals. So
Speaker 4: the males approach the females and grab onto their hand.
Speaker 4: They face her and grab onto her hands, and then
Speaker 4: they do this like dance like back and forth where
Speaker 4: he like leads her back and forth.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Gestation period you ask, seven to nine
Speaker 2: months similar to a human, or up to fourteen months
Speaker 2: for emperor scorpions what troopers.
Speaker 4: And once they give birth, she does this thing called
Speaker 4: a berth basket where she arges her back up and
Speaker 4: makes her arms into like a circle, like kind of
Speaker 4: touches her hands together and makes like a little circle.
Speaker 4: And so they'll crawl up her hands onto her back
Speaker 4: and then they'll stay up there for it depends on
Speaker 4: the species, but they'll stay up there until they've molted
Speaker 4: for the first time, so they've shed their exoskeleton and
Speaker 4: gotten a little bigger, and in that first period they
Speaker 4: kind of almost look like a little larval still, like
Speaker 4: they don't look like a normal scorpion, but as soon
Speaker 4: as they have that first molt, they look just like
Speaker 4: a little tiny miniature scorpion.
Speaker 2: So they just hop off and they're like tulu.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like they'll kind of start coming off her back
Speaker 4: and then getting back on for a little bit. But
Speaker 4: in some species they do kind of live semi cooperatively,
Speaker 4: like they're still living together in the same area for
Speaker 4: a long period of time. So the moms actually like
Speaker 4: will live in a burrow with the babies. Oh, I
Speaker 4: don't know, like months, years maybe, and they'll just live
Speaker 4: around each other and they tolerate each other really well.
Speaker 4: And then she gives birth anywhere from two to I
Speaker 4: think the upper limit that anybody's ever recorded is like
Speaker 4: one fifth forty, like high one forties. Wow, maybe let's
Speaker 4: say one fifty, call it even.
Speaker 2: One one hundred and fifty babies.
Speaker 4: That would be like a lot, and they all pile
Speaker 4: up on her back.
Speaker 5: A party, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Now sc party. Now, what is some flint flam about
Speaker 2: scorpions that you would like to debunk? What are some
Speaker 2: myths that you're like, let's get the record straight, people, Well.
Speaker 5: Okay, here's a few things you need to know about scorpions.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: One, they can't jump. Oh okay, it's just a thing.
Speaker 5: They don't They don't jump. They can't walk.
Speaker 4: They can they can walk on some vertical services if
Speaker 4: they're like grainy, like like a rock that has little
Speaker 4: micro areas to step on, but otherwise like something that's slick,
Speaker 4: like windows. They could never walk on a window. Okay,
Speaker 4: So they're gonna have a hard time get if you
Speaker 4: see it from like like three feet away, Like, you
Speaker 4: don't have to run away.
Speaker 5: It's not gonna be able to grab you.
Speaker 2: So with the exception of Arizona, some parts of southern Nevada,
Speaker 2: and some parts of western New Mexico, Lauren says.
Speaker 4: In the US, there are no scorpions that you have
Speaker 4: to be concerned about. Oh okay, like worst case scenario,
Speaker 4: it feels like a wasp, even those ones in Arizona.
Speaker 4: Like if if you're a healthy adult, you don't have
Speaker 4: to worry. It's not gonna kill you. It will just
Speaker 4: hurt for a little bit. Okay, you might feel like
Speaker 4: a little more like an electric shock than a wasps thing.
Speaker 4: But if you're a child, you want to be safe
Speaker 4: and not be playing with scorpions in Arizona.
Speaker 5: Just rule thumb. So that's the thing.
Speaker 2: I have so many questions from listeners, can I ask you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, So before we get to your Patreon questions, a
Speaker 2: few words from the folks who sponsor the show. And
Speaker 2: one thing about having ads is it makes donations to
Speaker 2: a cause of the ologists choosing possible. So this week
Speaker 2: it's two Islands and See. This is a nonprofit that
Speaker 2: Lauren founded with Eric Steiner, and Islands and Sees is
Speaker 2: building these small field stations that serve as research facilities
Speaker 2: for scientists in the area. They also serve as centers
Speaker 2: for science and environmental education for nearby schools. They have
Speaker 2: internships for teenagers interested in science field guide training. Ah.
Speaker 2: So good Islands sees dot org. That's Islands plural Sees
Speaker 2: dot org. So thank you Lauren and Eric for starting that.
Speaker 2: Now a few words about sponsors making that donation and
Speaker 2: the production of this very show possible. Okay, back to
Speaker 2: your questions. Okay, so this is kind of like a
Speaker 2: lightning round. Okay. Sonya Karpoleovich wants to know should they
Speaker 2: be kept as pets and if yes, do they make
Speaker 2: good pets.
Speaker 4: I say, I'm gonna say yes, they should should there's
Speaker 4: no reason they shouldn't be kept us pets. But like
Speaker 4: all things that are kept in captivity, I think it's
Speaker 4: really important to have captive bread ones because then keeps
Speaker 4: people out of the natural ecosystems from over harvesting, over collecting.
Speaker 5: For the pet trade.
Speaker 4: So there are some like quite a few species that
Speaker 4: are really common in the pet trade and our bread
Speaker 4: in captivity. So if you want a scorpion as a pet,
Speaker 4: don't go.
Speaker 5: Get it out of your backyard. Leave it there.
Speaker 4: It's doing something important in the ecosystem, and rather buy
Speaker 4: one that's been captive bread by a breeder.
Speaker 2: Okay, Emily hawkingsids a question about the waste management system.
Speaker 2: Where is the butt?
Speaker 5: Do they pee? They do?
Speaker 4: They have just like a single kind of chloeca thing
Speaker 4: that has that excrease everything, and they don't have like
Speaker 4: separate pe and pooh situation and that so it all
Speaker 4: comes out from right before the stinger.
Speaker 2: Oh, Wade Lee wants to know. Is it true smaller
Speaker 2: scorpions are more venomous in general? Smiley face emoji.
Speaker 4: It depends on where you are, so it's not a
Speaker 4: simple yes or no answer. In some places, smaller scorpions
Speaker 4: are belong to that one group boothity, so they are
Speaker 4: more venomous m hm. But I would say in general
Speaker 4: a better frame of reference is if they have thin
Speaker 4: hands and either are really long or really fat tail,
Speaker 4: they're probably more venomous. And if they have big, fat
Speaker 4: hands and their hands are much broader than the width
Speaker 4: of their tail, then they're less venomous. Oh so it's
Speaker 4: not like the overall body size but the proportion of
Speaker 4: hands to tail situation.
Speaker 2: So counterintuitively, big pinchers less scary. And now, best thing
Speaker 2: about scorpions, Best thing about your job? What do you love?
Speaker 4: And you know, I love my job because I get
Speaker 4: to wear so many hats, and I'm at an institution
Speaker 4: that feels I'm at an institution that was such a
Speaker 4: good match for me, which is why I wanted to
Speaker 4: work there. The Califourni Academy of Sciences is is, I think,
Speaker 4: an incredible museum because it's equally committed to science outreach,
Speaker 4: which is something I love doing and like really high
Speaker 4: quality science research.
Speaker 5: So for me, those two aspects of my work life, I.
Speaker 4: Always felt like I was gonna have to give up
Speaker 4: one for the other m H. But I found a
Speaker 4: really great fit and a thing for me. That's like
Speaker 4: the good. The great thing about going to work every
Speaker 4: day is they love all the things I'm doing, including
Speaker 4: running a little nonprofit let's focus on conservation and doing
Speaker 4: a visibility campaign for a queer sciences. And it's nice
Speaker 4: to be somewhere where I can bring.
Speaker 5: All of me to the job.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, it's great.
Speaker 2: So ask smart people questions, because how else would we
Speaker 2: ever find out that scorpions are four hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million years old and we're once the size of like
Speaker 2: a couch?
Speaker 4: What what?
Speaker 2: To learn more about doctor Esposito's endeavor, you can find
Speaker 2: her on Instagram at Krabales. More links will all be
Speaker 2: up at aliward dot com slash ologies slash Scorpiology. You
Speaker 2: can follow ologies on Twitter or Instagram at Ologies. I'm
Speaker 2: on both at Aliward with one l. Also linked is
Speaker 2: aliward dot com slash Asmologies, which has dozens more kid
Speaker 2: safe and shorter episodes you can blaze through and thank you.
Speaker 2: Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio and Shared Sleeper of Mind
Speaker 2: Jam Media for editing those as well as Zeke Rodriguez
Speaker 2: Thomas and says we like to keep things small around here.
Speaker 2: The rest of the credits are in the show notes
Speaker 2: and at the end of the episode, I give you
Speaker 2: a piece of advice. And this piece of advice sounds simple,
Speaker 2: but it's huge, and that is that you are enough
Speaker 2: as the person you are, and you are wonderful as
Speaker 2: you are, and anyone who is worth being your friend
Speaker 2: already loves you the way that you are, and you
Speaker 2: don't have to change to make anyone happy. So just
Speaker 2: be yourself and the right people will come to your life. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's my piece of advice for you. It took me
Speaker 2: a long time to learn it, but it's important, all right,
Speaker 2: boyebye knowledge.
Speaker 3: Hours knowledge. Concious knowledge is