They exist upon egg yolk in their mid-gut. They molt their shells as they grow and soon after the first molt, resembling an adult but many times smaller, they drop off and each little cannibal goes his or her own way. A scorpion has a central pair of eyes and, depending upon the species, from three to five pairs of smaller lateral eyes. In front of the mouth there is a second pair of appendages, much shorter than the pedipalpi, equipped with small but powerful pincers for mashing and shredding food. The first pair of legs have glands secreting digestive enzymes.
Scorpions prey chiefly upon insects but spiders, millipedes and centipedes are also eaten.
When a scorpion is hungry it seizes an insect with the pincers of the pedipalpi, paralyzes it with the stinger, mashes it with the shorter appendages, injects enzymes into it and, when all of the insect's tissues have become fluid, sucks it dry. Nothing but the empty chitinous shell remains. However, scorpions can live more than a year without eating. There are at least 300 species of scorpions, most of them in tropical or desert regions, and they vary in length from one-half inch to more than seven inches. Some are reddish, some yellow, and some green.