Experiment with the venom of two well-known Harmless scorpions

[brancsikia339]

I haven't been on in a while so i thought I'd post a recent experiment I tried out.

I decided to test the venom of two well-known harmless scorpions, Hadogenes troglodytes and Pandinus sp. (Candidates for an i.d. for this one include cavimanus, awashensis and imperator) on adult female feeder crickets.

I set a timer and kept a notebook with me and took notes while the venom took effect. It was very interesting to see how the venom reacted in the crickets. This experiment took a half hour to conduct. I will note that the two Pandinus i have are very small, most likely 4th instar. My hypothesis was that the venom of the Pandinus sp. would work much faster than the Hadogenes, which was correct in the end. I'll let you know it was very difficult to get a Hadogenes to sting, they'd rather pinch you to death! Here is a short Data table of my findings

Let me know what you think, Thanks!

~Andrew

 

[Extrememantid]

Very interesting, i would be interested in the affects of hadrurus arizonensis (giant desert hairy) compared to the two.. If you have the sp. of course

 

[brancsikia339]

Very interesting, i would be interested in the affects of hadrurus arizonensis (giant desert hairy) compared to the two.. If you have the sp. of course

Unfortunately I don't right now. And my "pandinus" turned out to be a heterometrus

 

[Extrememantid]

Oh okay...

 

[Ranitomeya]

To get a better idea of venom toxicity, you need to be able to measure out doses of venom. Scorpions, like most venomous organisms, can vary the amount of venom actually injected.

 

[Boosh96]

Well, at least you know how Heterometrus venom stacks up against H. troglodytes. That's a really interesting experiment for sure, but I'd suggest repeating it a few times and see if the results differ.

 

[brancsikia339]

To get a better idea of venom toxicity, you need to be able to measure out doses of venom. Scorpions, like most venomous organisms, can vary the amount of venom actually injected.

yeah i agree, but that is unfortunately easier said that done. It would be very difficult to measure the dose of venom delivered into a cricket, especially because the amount delivered varies from species to species.

Well, at least you know how Heterometrus venom stacks up against H. troglodytes. That's a really interesting experiment for sure, but I'd suggest repeating it a few times and see if the results differ.

I repeated it twice afterward, and the results were nearly identical. It may be because H. troglodytes is so unbelievably reluctant to sting that it may be injecting little to no venom at all. They are known to have the weakest venom of the scorpion world. The Heterometrus had no problem aggressively stinging crickets