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Sticker of Arabian fat-tailed scorpion
Bug card No. 0044 of 1,500

Arabian fat-tailed scorpion

Androctonus crassicauda
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsScorpions, ticks and friendsDeserts and dry places8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

It can be light brown, reddish or almost black. It lives in deserts and hides in old ruined buildings during the day.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
North Africa and the Middle East, at desert edges and in old ruins
Length
10 cm (3.9 in)
can grow even longer
Top speed
about 2.6 km/h (1.6 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch

Watch out! Read all about it on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
At night it hunts insects and other small creepy crawlies, and sometimes even small lizards.
For real!Photo of Arabian fat-tailed scorpion
Picture by Per-Anders Olsson. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Arabian fat-tailed scorpion about 10 cm long (3.9 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 3 toy building bricks in a rowabout as long as your handcould run across a dinner table in 1.4 seconds

How big is Arabian fat-tailed scorpion compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It can grow longer than 10 centimetres, about as long as a grown-up's finger.

2

It hides in cracks and under things during the day and comes out at night.

you asked

Most asked questions about Arabian fat-tailed scorpion

?What does it eat?

Insects and other small animals without bones, and sometimes small lizards.

?Why is it called fat-tailed?

Because its tail is very thick and chunky compared with many other scorpions.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Androctonus crassicauda
Group
Scorpions, ticks and friends
Family
Buthidae
Classification
Arachnida > Scorpiones > Buthidae
Lives on
Africa, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Androctonus crassicauda (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Per-Anders Olsson. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

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