Centruroides vittatus

just got tagged by a virile little male C. vittatus that just came in while I way rehousing him. the bees are big this time of year, eh? so I've got some baking soda/water mix on it. sent a tingling sensation over my body. so it has finally happened, I have finally been tagged - I have to say, I'm impressed.

yeah, rub it in. I always swore that it would never happen, guess I shoulda been more careful when moving him. no big deal, the sensation lasted a few minutes and now it's just a little localized warmth and stiffness in the joints of my thumb.

Well, I got tagged in the field today at around 3:20pm CST. It was a small male and it nailed me good, right in the tip of my left thumb. I've always free-handled our native scorps by grabbing the last two or three segments and immobilizing the telson, and I've been tagged a couple times by some Vaejovis , which were essentially painless, and once by a C. sculpturatus which I thought hurt moderately. I've handled literally hundreds of C. vittatus in various states this way and had never been hit. In fact, I had actually considered letting one sting me just to see in the past...if you share a morbid curiousity like me, let me tell you now...DON'T DO IT.

On a scale from 1-10 pain, it was an instantaneous 6-7 and I was unable to stand still. Imagine someone sticking a thumb-tack, covered in lemon juice, into your thumb all the way. It stayed very strong for about 5 minutes and over the course of an hour, it had dulled to a 3 or 4. By two hours, it had dropped to a 1-2. As I type this (roughly 3 hours later), my thumb still feels a strange pins-and-needles effect...like it's asleep or being very faintly electrocuted. I can't see where the telson went in or anything and there's no swelling. When I lower my hand below my waist, the blood flows down and a throb of pain comes back, at around a 1.

Pretty impressive sting, the worst I've ever receieved from any invert, and certainly worse than any bee, wasp, or velvet ant I've been stung by.

:venom: striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus), my buddy got stung by one and he said it felt like his finger was burning and hurt really bad but never had to go to hospital for the sting ,he says to tell you all just because it wont kill you dont mean it doesnt hurt really really bad!!

My boyfriend got tagged by his C. vittatus as well. It hurt. lol Just like your bud though, no othe repercussions other than a hell of a lot of burning and pain. But that's what he got for sticking his hand in there. -.-"

I received 11 today and I was moving them from a deli cup to the container where they will be communal and I wasn't too worried about being stung because I've been tagged by much worse so I was transferring them using my finger since it was the quickest way. Well all but three went quickly to the bark. One was being stubborn after trying to caress it off my finger to the bark using a pair of 12" tweezers and so I guess after awhile it got annoyed and stung me between my middle finger & ring finger knuckle.

The feeling was almost instant and lasted for about two minutes(tingling sensation) and I'd say overall 1/2 of what a wasp sting feels like. Then the second one got me because the one on the bark came up to while I was trying to get the other one off my hand and I guess my finger appealed to it and it stung me just above the nail. Felt the same as the sting from the previous one 5 minutes before.

I would say on a scale of 1-5 but that wouldn't justify it, so I will say on a scale of 1-10 it was a 1. A wasp would be like a 2.5/10. Just for reference.

I edited the original post because I used the word pain and it wasn't painful at all. It was just like a tingling sensation that lasted for roughly about two minutes

Years ago I was sitting on the back porch of my girlfriends parents house and in the dark I saw scorpion go under the door of an outside closet. I eased the door open and just inside the door was a paper bag of stuff, don't know what was in it. I just knew the scorp was under the bag, so I grabbed the bag and much to my surprise, it was on the bad and I grabbed it and it got me good. Hurt like heck, but that was it!