• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Brand New Species Of Scorpion Is A Venom Spraying Badass From Columbia

January 24, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

Species that possess venom are some of the most badass in the animal world. Now, a new member has joined their ranks – a scorpion from Columbia that represents the first venom-spraying species of scorpion reported both in South America and in the genus it belongs to. 

ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE

The new species has been called Tityus achilles after the Greek mythological figure of Achilles and his competent use of a spear. It is the 230th member of the genus Tityus and is found in the broadleaf rainforest of Magdalena Valley in Cundinamarca, Columbia, where it seems to spend its time on the forest floor, rather than in the trees as other species that occur in the same area are known to do. 

To learn more about how this species uses its venom, researcher Léo Laborieux recorded 46 venom pulses using a high frame rate camera. In doing so, the study author identified two types of airborne defense when it comes to spraying, each with a different level of reach and a different level of venom.

The two types of venom spraying were defined as: venom flicks, which consist of a single droplet projected a short distance, and venom sprays, which are more sustained. Out of all the venom spraying in the experiment, 14 flicks and 24 sprays were used by the scorpions.

The results also show that like other scorpions, the venom secretions used in the experiment change in composition after subsequent pulses. Initially, a clear pre-venom is used, and then after five or so pulses, the secretion becomes white and opaque. The maximum distance the spraying venom reached was approximately 36 centimeters (14 inches). 

Creating and creating venom takes a lot of energy from the animal and is typically used solely in predation events or in self-defense. There are only a few animals capable of spraying their venom and only two genera of scorpions.

“Scorpions have to raise their metabolism enormously to produce venom. For them, it’s like running a marathon,” evolutionary biologist Dr Arie van der Meijden of the CIBIO-InBIO Institute in Portugal, who was not involved in this study, told IFLScience. “It takes a lot of effort to make it, but then they never use quite so much.”

ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE

The experiment featured only juvenile scorpions, so questions remain about whether there are differences in these two venom tactics between sub-adults and adults. Laborieux also hypothesizes that comparing venom spraying between different genera of venom-spraying scorpions could advance our understanding of its evolution and specialization within these creatures.

The study is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China’s elite snowboarders herald new wave of Olympians
  2. Philippines to investigate 154 police over deadly drugs war
  3. Puffins’ Fighting Side Gets Airtime In David Attenborough’s First UK Nature Series
  4. The Unlikely Coexistence Of Spaceships And Wild Nature Around The World

Source Link: Brand New Species Of Scorpion Is A Venom Spraying Badass From Columbia

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Man Broke Down Wall In His Basement And Discovered An Ancient Underground City That Once Housed 20,000 People
  • Same-Sex Penguin Couple Adopt And Raise Chick – And They’ve All Got 10/10 Names
  • Dolphins May Not “See” With Echolocation, But Instead “Feel” With It
  • Confirmed! Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Indeed An Interstellar Visitor, Quite Different From Its Predecessors
  • At 192, Jonathan – The Oldest Living Land Animal – Has Lived Through 40 US Presidents
  • 300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools “Made By Denisovans” Discovered In China
  • Why Do Cats Eyes Glow? For The Same Reason Great White Sharks’ Do, Silly
  • G-astronomical News: Michelin-Starred Meal To Be Served On The ISS
  • In 2032, Earth May Witness A Once-In-5,000-Year Event On The Moon
  • Brand New Microscope Designed For Underwater Reveals Stunning Details Of Corals
  • The Atlantic’s Major Circulation Current Is Showing Worrying Signs, But Is Collapse Near?
  • “The Rings Held The Answer”: How We Finally Figured Out Saturn’s Day Length In 2019
  • Mystery Of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” Solved By A Dentist And A Protractor
  • Asteroid Ryugu’s Latest Mineral Is As Weird As Finding “A Tropical Seed In The Arctic”
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Are We Living Through A Sixth Mass Extinction?
  • Alien Abduction Or A Trick Of The Mind? A Down To Earth Explanation Of Close Encounters
  • Six Months Into Trump’s Presidency, Americans Report Record Low Pride In Being American
  • TikToker Unknowingly Handles Extremely Venomous Cone Snail And Lives To Tell The Tale
  • Scientists Sequence Oldest Egyptian DNA To Date, From A Whopping 4,800 Years Ago
  • “Uncharted Waters”: Large Hadron Collider Begins Colliding Oxygen For The First Time
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version