Two African Scorps

I am working temporarily in Angola, a Southern African country that borders with Namibia and Zambia. I am currently in the extreme South which is also the extreme North of the Namib Desert, home to many dangerous scorps. Locals report encounters with a large, black, hairy scorpion that can hiss and kills adults within one hour. Because I am interested in Scorpions, I have been searching for them in my free time. I have come across a small, fully grown light scorpion that has very thin pincers and a black ring on its metasoma. I found two other scorpions of the same species. Brown body with lighter legs and relatively large pincers. I could not get good pictures of the white scorp as I am not willing to take it out of the jar that contains it at the moment. I plan to release them tomorrow and have fed all the scorps and given them water.

Any ideas?

Click here to view:

First one seems to be of the Genus Opisthalmus.. can't pin down the exact specie

Second seems to be an LQ.... but I thought they didn't exist that far south


anyone else know?

Oh you meant the extreme south of those two countries, not the continent.

Then yes that's the deadliest of scorpions you currently have.

Well most toxic scorpion venom to be exact.

Androctonus are a tad bit less venomous but usually inject more so it balances out....
And are encountered by humans more often which leads to more deaths.

Its kinda interresting that the 2-3 instar is orange allso that the mommy has a orange triangle and orange coloring on the second secments of the "arms" its a pretty good looking LQ, best one i have seen yet


The big black one is nothing to be scared of, and it differnt wont kill you in less the 1 hour, i highly belive no scorpion will be able to do that to a adult healthy person.
The little yellow one with the black secement is the one you need to be carefull of, like Venom said, the strongest venom in the scorpion world, but it injects a small amount

Agree with Kejser, thats an unusual LQ indeed. Beautiful colorings

Strange. I thought that deathstalkers are only found far North and the Namib Desert is well below the equator. The locals speak of diabo preto and diabo branco, meaning black devil and white devil and I believe that the large black scorpions that reportedly kill adults are Parabuthus Villosus or diabo preto and this little white scorpion which people say is a deathstalker is diabo branco. I have not yet come across the large black scorpion and the other brown scorpion I found is not it. Some people may have misunderstood me. It is just another that I found. If I find this large black scorpion which is definitely some type of parabuthus, I will upload some pics.

P.S. The Gormar scorpion has killed healthy adults in under 20 minutes.

Kejser wrote:

The big black one is nothing to be scared of, and it differnt wont kill you in less the 1 hour, i highly belive no scorpion will be able to do that to a adult healthy person.

Kejser, I think he is talking about an Parabuthus sp. (or perhaps a Androctonus) that lives in that area. But yes, I doubt it could kill a person in less than an hour.

Ronin-Jin wrote:

Locals report encounters with a large, black, hairy scorpion that can hiss and kills adults within one hour.

I'm thinking he's talking about a P. transvaalicus.

Venom wrote:

First one seems to be of the Genus Opisthalmus.. can't pin down the exact specie

I agree, and the venom of this one is harmless, as Kejser said.





The LQ looks strange. (If thats what it is. Perhaps it's a young one?) Also if it is a LQ, it's rather odd that the 4th metasomal segment is dark, not the 5th. Has anyone seen this in a LQ? I'm not that really familiar with LQs, so more information would be appreciated.

Ronin-Jin wrote:

P.S. The Gormar scorpion has killed healthy adults in under 20 minutes.

I seriously doubt it has killed somebody that fast. (Perhaps if it was a small child, but certainly not a healthy adult) They are dangerous, but as far as I know, no scorpion has killed someone in 20 mins.

Ronin-Jin wrote:

P.S. The Gormar scorpion has killed healthy adults in under 20 minutes.

Where have you gotten your info? Because I know for a fact that there is no scorpion in the world that can do that one on one with a healthy adult unless they have an allergic reaction

Also, what sp is a "gormar scorpion"? All that's coming up under that name are A. bicolors and Parabuthus sp with the odd A. crassicauda and those can't kill healthy adults especially the first two. The only other scorpion i'm seeing looks like a pandinus sp. and seems that the author is trying to scare people into thinking that bigger scorpions are more lethal.

As for the claims that some websites have that a Gormar scorpion is the second most deadly is laughable, in both cases in LD50 values and deaths nothing beats androctonus sp/deathstalkers/that other most venomous with the weird name but isnt a "gormar"

Would you mind ultimately citing your source as this would be brand new information, but I have the very assuring feeling that this is an urban legend.

That second scorpion is definitely not an Lq, or even in the Leiurus genus at all. Notice the lack of granulation on the carapace. Not every scorpion that has a black metasomal segment is an Lq. However, this lack of dorsal carinae is consistent with the Buthacus genus though "Hint, hint". Although there are many species that are nearly impossible to identify with the naked eye, my previous education regarding scorpion taxon tells me Buthacus.

Envyizm wrote:

That second scorpion is definitely not an Lq, or even in the Leiurus genus at all. Notice the lack of granulation on the carapace. Not every scorpion that has a black metasomal segment is an Lq. However, this lack of dorsal carinae is consistent with the Buthacus genus though "Hint, hint". Although there are many species that are nearly impossible to identify with the naked eye, my previous education regarding scorpion taxon tells me Buthacus.

+1

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the pic was B. leptochelys, but it not it as they don't have a black segment. Definitely a Buthacus sp. IMHO.

Yeah that looks nothing like an LQ ?

Envyizm wrote:

That second scorpion is definitely not an Lq, or even in the Leiurus genus at all. Notice the lack of granulation on the carapace. Not every scorpion that has a black metasomal segment is an Lq. However, this lack of dorsal carinae is consistent with the Buthacus genus though "Hint, hint". Although there are many species that are nearly impossible to identify with the naked eye, my previous education regarding scorpion taxon tells me Buthacus.

Well.... that explains alot. I was wondering why the 4th metasomal segment was black, not the 5th. But this cleared that up.