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Sticker of Northern scorpion
Bug card No. 0970 of 1,500

Northern scorpion

Paruroctonus boreus
Name means: “boreus means "northern"”
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsScorpions, ticks and friendsDeserts and dry places8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

It has a dark V shape on its head around its eyes. It lives farther north than any other scorpion in the world.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
Western North America, from Arizona and California up to British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, on dry, rocky hillsides with sagebrush
Length
3.5 to 3.9 cm (1.4 to 1.5 in)
females are a bit bigger than males
Top speed
about 1.6 km/h (0.99 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Can bite or sting

Watch out! Read all about it on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It hunts small animals at night. The babies do not hunt at first and live off the thin skin they were born in.
For real!Photo of Northern scorpion
Picture by Xbuzzi. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Northern scorpion about 3.9 cm long (1.5 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 6 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 2.2 seconds

How big is Northern 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 is the only scorpion that lives in Canada.

2

It comes out of its burrow late in the evening, and stays home when it rains or when it is colder than 10 degrees.

3

A mother has 10 to 40 babies. They climb up her legs and ride around on her back.

4

Males wander up to six times farther each night than females.

5

Scorpions have eight legs, just like spiders, which are their cousins.

you asked

Most asked questions about Northern scorpion

?Are there scorpions in Canada?

Yes, one. The northern scorpion lives in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

?How big is the northern scorpion?

It is about 3.5 to 4 centimetres long. Females are a bit bigger than males.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Paruroctonus boreus
Named by
Girard, 1854
Group
Scorpions, ticks and friends
Family
Vaejovidae
Classification
Arachnida > Scorpiones > Vaejovidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Paruroctonus boreus (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 Xbuzzi. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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