Tag Archives: Scorpions

The Numbers Game #53

A Black-crowned night heron struggles o get out of an algae covered pond
A Black-crowned Night Heron in a spot of bother in a pond at Kawaihae.

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 174. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

A Lesser Brown Scorpion in Hawaii
A lively Lesser Brown Scorpion.
A passion vine butterfly on a tasselflower
A Passion-vine Butterfly getting to grips with a tasselflower.
A white-tailed tropicbird flying over North Kohala, Hawaii
A White-tailed Tropicbird.
Two Kona Brewing Company beer taps
Beer taps.
Footsteps mark the way at Kaulana Manu Nature Trail in Hawaii
Just so you don’t get lost at Kaulana Manu Nature Trail.
The breakwater at Kawaihae, Hawaii
The breakwater at Kawaihae appears to lead the way to Maui.

Lesser Brown Scorpion

A Lesser Brown Scorpion in Hawaii
A Lesser Brown Scorpion in Hawaii
A Lesser Brown Scorpion in Hawaii

Lesser Brown Scorpions (Isometrus maculatus) are small, shy, and mostly active at night. This is why I’d only seen two here before. One was dead in a box, flattened by the items I was unpacking. The other was alive, but not well. It looked like it had been stepped on.

These photos are of my third encounter, which happened recently. I was getting rid of accumulated odds and ends in the office at work, when I opened up a large, yellow bag that had been stowed there for a year or so. When I looked in, I saw this very much alive and active scorpion.

I took the bag outside, grabbing my camera on the way, and then tried getting some photos, with the help of others in the crew. It was hard to get anything decent because the scorpion scurried around seeking cover. We decided to tip it out onto the tiles. This made the process a bit easier, though not because the scorpion settled down any. It was just as active and every time I looked in the viewfinder it seemed to be making a beeline for me!

After a while I ushered it off the tiles and it scurried away, under the lanai. And while it looks imposing in these photos, it was less than two inches long overall. I’ve read that the sting of these scorpions is similar to a bee sting and not dangerous unless a person is allergic to the toxins. I didn’t feel a need to find out for myself.

Lesser brown scorpion

In my seven plus years of living in Hawaii, I’d never encountered a scorpion. Then I saw my first, squashed, in a box I was emptying. Earlier this week I saw my second. It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t well. I think it had been stepped on, which is why its large, claw-like pedipalps aren’t so prominent in this photo.

This is a lesser brown scorpion (Isometrus maculatus), the only scorpion species in Hawaii. It’s not as dangerous as some scorpions, with a sting similar to bees. It’s also not common, in part because it’s nocturnal and also small. This one was less than two inches long.