Respect the fossorial nature of your scorpion

The title says it all.

I must say, only do this IF you are willing to take the time for it. Your scorpion however will thank you if it could.
What I have done is a little test.

I put my Androctonus mauritanicus scorplings on different substrate.

1 Dry white sand, with a hide..
2 Dry white sand, with a hide and a part made wet (with claywater)
3 Dry white sand, only a part wettened with claywater.

Why claywater? It is easily the best solution to make white sand robust. They can dig in it. It will not collapse. Not even after drying out.
If you take a mix of sand and clay, it will be much harder and not possible for many species to dig through it.

What I do is, i take a piece of clay and dissolve it in water. It has to be almost as dense as water so it can go through the grains of sand till the bottom of the enclosure for a firm fix.


What I noticed after 2 days!


1 If they only have a hide and dry sand, they will stay under the hide and try to get out of their enclosure at night aka climbing the walls.

2 If they have a hide, dry parts and a piece of sand they can dig into, they WILL dig into it asap. Thus leaving the hide useless since they wont go into it anymore. Apparently, the sandy burrows are part of their instinct. They do not climb the walls anymore at night, and only display their pinchers out.

3 If they have dry sand, with only a burrowable part, they will dig.. displaying the same behaviour as the ones from option 2.

Conclusion: Give them more than just white sand. If you can give them a burrow they will be semi happy during the day, but it is not considered home and they will try to find a way out at night. If you give them the opportunity to fullfill what their instinct tells them to (dig a hole called home) they will adopt the surroundings as their home. Not trying to get out anymore.

As a reference I made a few pictures with this. It is pretty clear what they prefer and this is only meant to be informative. It might seem obvious, but making burrowable sand really isnt.


A cricket container, with the burrow of wood and stone removed. Yes the scorpion is still in there... try to find it.


I might think you havent found it.. well this is the reason why

that's great mate
would scare me if i came to look at my Andro and it's not there

lol :-D

Wait till you see the big ones

I gave my A. bicolors hardened sand with a hide to live in. They took to the hides immediately, but dug out some extensive burrows under them. One tunneled under the hide until it hit the glass, then turned following the edge, and tunneled all the way across the back until it hit the corner, turned again and tunneled back into the middle of the tank to make it's den.

When I first got them they burrowed instead of using the hides, but the sand to clay mixture wasn't right so they collapsed. They took the hides after that, but I rehoused them onto a new mixture. I never see them now. Ever. Both have closed off the entrances to their underground lairs.

The crickets disappear every other feeding it seems.

this happens with my P. cavimanus
i think he's flown away, but food vanishes

We can only assume then that everything is as it should be... There's a reason most people never see a wild scorpion in their lives I suppose.

Heyyy...I did the clay water thing too! They love it... 42 scorpions (not counting Scorplings & its dang near impossible to find one during the heat of the day. Blacklight em @ night & you'll see 40 pairs of claws...lol

Can you take pictures of that Wishes? Pictures on which I can see only the scissors? :-)))))) sharp pictures? Like, not fuzzy?

I do love the fact you're having a blast keeping them. Like I said, that enclosure is wicked.. You put the big sucker in there with them or is it another species?

and this time, be sure to remove any.. distasteful items

I'm not quite sure I understand claywater. I looked it up and it still makes no sense.

How does this work again?

it just binds the sand together by the looks of things. holds burrows better

Dissolve the clay in water and use the clay water to wet your sand. This allows the clay to filter through the sand and when it dries out it will help hold everything together so that burrows don't collapse.

Aha! Thank you............I was thinking that's what it meant but I wasn't grasping it I suppose lol........duh.

Streettrash wrote:

Dissolve the clay in water and use the clay water to wet your sand. This allows the clay to filter through the sand and when it dries out it will help hold everything together so that burrows don't collapse.

Man, I wished I was as clear as Mitchell. Saves up on energy typing!

lol