Scorpions

Scorpions (order Scorpiones) are a group of arachnids consisting of over 2,500 different species. They can be identified by their eight legs, pair of pincers at the front of the body and segmented tail that ends with a venomous sting. While mainly associated with deserts, scorpions can live in many different habitats and occur on every continent except Antarctica. Scorpions are among the oldest living animal groups, with the first ones evolving in the Silurian period around 435 million years ago.

## Appearances in Dorling Kindersley Vision media

The imperial scorpion is the most commonly-recurring species of studio-filmed invertebrate in the Dorling Kindersley Vision shows, with eleven appearances altogether. This also puts it into the top ten most frequent studio-filmed species in the DK franchise (drawn with the tiger in ninth and tenth position)

### See How They Grow

Two episodes of See How They Grow contain scorpions. In Jungle Animals, one of the four segments follows the life cycle of an imperial scorpion, with this species later also appearing in the snail segment. Desert Animals include large-clawed scorpions, that appear in both the tarantula and tortoise segments.

### Eyewitness

A total of six Eyewitness episodes have at least one scorpion species appear in them. Season three has the most episodes, with three containing scorpions. Season two has two episodes, while the first season has only a single episode.

* **SEASON ONE**: Skeleton
* **SEASON TWO**: Prehistoric Life, Shell
* **SEASON THREE**: Survival, Monster, Plant

In Monster, an imperial scorpion briefly serves as one of the episode’s heroes. Not long after its appearance, it is apparently eaten by a bearded dragon and no longer appears in the episode. In fact, the lizard actually eats a cricket of a similar colour rather than being fed an actual scorpion.

Species of scorpion that only appeared in Eyewitness include the flat rock scorpion and the Trinidad thick-tailed scorpion.

### Amazing Animals

A total of nine episodes of Amazing Animals contains at least one species of scorpion. Season one has the most episodes containing scorpions, with four altogether. The second season has three episodes, while seasons three and four have just one episode each.

* **SEASON ONE**: Animal Survivors, Animal Weapons, Animal Babies, Poisonous Animals
* **SEASON TWO**: Desert Animals, Scary Animals, Animal Families
* **SEASON THREE**: Animal Hunters
* **SEASON FOUR**: Around the World

It should be noted that the scorpion footage used in Animal Babies was taken from the Jungle Animals episode of See How They Grow.

The scorpions as a group win the Golden Gecko Award in Desert Animals, and they also win the silver award in Poisonous Animals.

Species of scorpion that only appeared in Amazing Animals are the giant desert hairy scorpion and yellow-tailed scorpion.

## Total species

* Imperial scorpion, *Pandinus imperator*
* Flat rock scorpion, *Hadogenes troglodytes*
* Yellow-tailed scorpion, *Tetratrichobothrius flavicaudis*
* Trinidad thick-tailed scorpion, *Tityus trinitatis*
* Giant desert hairy scorpion, *Hadrurus arizonensis*
* Large-clawed scorpion, *Scorpio maurus*
* Common yellow scorpion, *Buthus occitanus*
* African fat-tailed scorpion, *Androctonus sp*.