Did you know that a good way to judge the potency of a scorpion's venom in not by the size or colour of the scorpion, but by the size of its pincers? A scorpion with large pincers has less potent venom than one with small pincers (as a rule). The scorpion with small pincers must rely more on its venom, therefore the venom is more potent than its large pincered brother. I just learned this on the programme called "Animal Planet".

I don't believe Canada (where I live) has any native scorpions. Well, maybe out in the "hoodoos", but not around my neck of the woods. If I ever came across one, I would still be scared spitless!

I think they can crawl out of imported bananas, Anna...
We have black widows, too! Your neice came across one in her new "home" down south, in arid Kamloops, BC!

Scorpions that crawl out of bananas, etc. would not be classed as "native", Lea!

There are probably pet scorpion "escapees" too!

You're just touchy 'cause I called you Anna Banana!

No, I'm not, Lea Pea!

*ouch!*
OK...would someone please talk about scorpions, now?

I had been in Italy about three weeks before I even KNEW they had scorpions there! I didn't understand anyone on the terrace where I spent most of my time with my then 3 year old daughter. However, one afternoon my daughter rolled a ball and it knocked off part of the eavestrough and everyone suddenly started yelling, "scorpione! scorpione!"! Even I knew what THAT meant! Sometimes it's better when you just don't know.

When I was stationed in North Africa we had to check our shoes and our bed before getting into either one.

Them little suckers were all over the place.

We had a couple of guys get dinged while I was over there. The one got zapped about 4 times on the neck before he got him off, nothing serious just a miserable headache is all.

.

According to my sister's description, they must have been BIG suckers, then, gilly, if they only gave a headache! I can't imagine living like that! I'm jumpy enough about the medium sized brown domestic spiders in my basement!

We have them here but they aren't very common or they are very elusive. I've only ever seen one. The other night we were sitting in the lounge room and jack says "What's that running across the floor? Is it a spider or a scorpion?"

Regardless of what it was I broke the speed of sound getting out of the room. (it was a spider)