Sheerness Dockyards Yellowtail Scorpion colony (UK)

I think they would if you had enough of them you know!
And the brick work of a house they would love that you don't know how tempted I have been to see if they would live in the brickwork of my house lol ( landlord would love that hahaha) but seriously thinking of how easy it would be to get a colony going near home all they need is a wall and an accidental drop lol and I'm sure they would stay put!
once you see how they are at sheerness I think you would agree they could prly live anywhere lol

Was actually really exciting seeing them in the wild lol ( all be it a brick wall on a normal street opposite normal houses lol) not as exciting as hunting is the USA or aus I'm sure lol

Was amazing though!! Was very happy when we came home with 4 that's for sure!

to have any chance of seeing them this year i would probably have to go in the next few weeks...
i would love to introduce them to my local area, but its illegal because you are introducing a non native species to different areas, so i will try my best to make sure i dont drop any near any good local habitats no guarantees though!
its only 1 hour and 23 minutes from here so i might try to go next Saturday...

Yeah when we went we was lucky the weather had warmed up that weekend so I have no idea what the chances of them being active are now really hey who knows maybe they are always some peeping out lol .... It took us about 40 mins to get there and we are near Dover it's pretty much a straight road the whole way so it's real easy to get to, and you can park right next to the wall too which is awesome

what sort of time did you go? must have been dark...
i assume they weren't too hard to remove from their homes either? i have trouble removing my flat rock scorpions from their shallow little hide, so they must have actually been nearly out of the wall...

ooh, just had an idea... scorpion fishing! bit of string tied to a cricket, when you get a bite pull them out gently. it works (in a very vaguely similar way) with crayfish anyway...

looked on google maps, wow thats a big car park!

We went at about eightish and they was hard to get out lol two we got were walking in the outside and the other two was in quite large cracks so could get behind them to ease them out, we tried using a bit of grass to tempt them out which kinda worked but they went back in again,and dome were tiny like half a cm scorplings and they would be sat together like 3-5 in a crack (so cute) you must be looking at the dockyard carpark lol yeah it's huge if you go bk in the post I posted a pic of exactly where we found ours and the postcode to use to get there..... Let us know how you get on

will do. i hope to spend an hour there and use the rest of the family to help me get them out. im aiming to get about 10 adult-ish ones.

i was wondering, if the wall has so many cracks in it, i sit likely that it will be refurbished any time soon. that could be a real problem for their populations.

i do hope they spread throughout england and become common.

i have also heard rumors of emperor scorpion colonies in the new forest and devon... could be worth a look...

The wall doesn't really have that many cracks it just like a normal wall I think if you walk down I to the dockyards is where you find more in older Walls .... Not sure though. As. We never went that far

it cant be refurbished because its a historical monument, and i heard about the emps to but i have no idea how they survive in our climate

Hi All,

I'm a wildlife enthusiast who was very interested in reading this thread. A couple of weeks later, a couple of friends and I made the 70-odd mile trip to Sheerness to get a look at these super specimens. Knowing the elements and time of year may be against us (4th Feb '11, cold with a bitter strong wind) we were still sure our luck would be in given the numbers mentioned previously.

A few photos from our evening:





Thanks, a great time had by all,

yrs,
Graeme J. Smith
britainsbirder.co.ukhttp://britainsbirder.co.uk

Wow so they are still out ATM that's amazing considering the weather might have to go again sooner than planned then looks like you have a few gravid specimens there too!

I was sure that we wouldnt gave a chance of seeing them at this time of year but seems promising if you got some, how many did u see/ catch, what time did you go? Andnwhat part of the wall would be very interested to hear more about your trip please

Oh and welcome to the forum!!

hiya,

I just couldn't wait until Spring!

following your directions we worked West along the wall from the phonebox/anchor but only found 6 during our whole eve, only one tiny one with the remaining 5 being much larger. Hard work in a cold and stiff-winded feb eve. We only relocated one to the car as it was a whopper... i had wondered if it was a carrying female as the abd seemed remarkably distended.
Already looking forward to our Summer trip as 6 seemed few for 2 hours, passing both pubs and almost reaching the corner which felt over 200 yards from our parked car!

Quite surprised at the number of 'others' creeping about; netted slug and funnelweb spider in abundance along with 3 sp. of woodlouse. Can't wait until it warms up, we will return :-)
cheers,
Graeme

Wow I'm amazed you managed to get any at this time of year, it's amazing they are in the country at all really, can't wait to visit again now!
We saw a good number when we went most were well deep in the wall though.

We noticed all the funnel web spiders, they must live well together as they didnt seem to bother each other while we was there some even sharing the same crack!

Wow. Those are some really beautiful scorpions! I'll have to keep the species in mind when I get a chance to expand.

That really is awesome having them in this country especially still out in the winter months! I really wish I could make a trip down but it's almost a three and half hour trip from where I live

Thought id post Some pics.... Unfortunately we found another one dead so only have 2 out of the 4, I'm now wondering if maybe it's a little to warm for them so have moves the remaining to the coolest part of the house, so little warning to anybody that has these don't keep them too warm!
May not be that at all could have been age as we have no idea how old they are jut know they're all adult

Sry to hear that bex. I guess what we can do best is only to replicate their natural enviro as close as possible, which i think you have done well. It might be due to old age since their age is not confirmed yet.

Looking forward, hope your gravid one brings many little ones for u!

Our gravid female trying to escape or wave or something lol made me laugh

we were told by a local when we went on monday, the best time to collect them is between 2200 and 0300. make sure you have an allaby, we were stopped by the police, they didn't believe us we were looking for scorpions
tom

just pretend your going to that sex shop opposite oh your a bit young lol
we had a local come out too he was suprised to learn that they was even there

hahah, we did notice that shop lol, you'd be surprised how many people coming out the two pubs looked in awe, half of them probably don't know. i would never have realised, until i found it on my random googling