During this dance, the male drops his sperm packet and the female takes it up in her genital opening. The manoeuvres may be to find a suitable spot for the male to drop his sperm packet, and to move the female over the packet correctly. The sperm packet has a holdfast to stick to the ground, and hooks which when caught on the female, opens the packet and directs the sperm into her body. After she accepts his sperm packet, they disengage, often violently. Many times, the escape is not successful.
Most scorpions are loners because of their cannibalistic tendencies.
When two scorpions meet, they usually fight until one is killed and eaten by the winner. After mating, the smaller scorpion is often in danger of being eaten. As females are usually bigger, it is the male which usually gets eaten. The male and female find each other through pheromones, using their pectines. The male usually makes the first move, although some females do so.