Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Photo#151462
Wind Scorpion

Wind Scorpion
Tucson, Arizona, USA
October 9, 2007
Size: 1.5 inches
I found this critter running across the floor in my hotel room in Tucson. I captured it with a cup and paper and put it in the fridge (to slow it down a bit, so I could get some pictures). I'm guessing the change in temperature was too much for it, because when I came back a few minutes later, it had expired.

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Wind Scorpion Wind Scorpion Wind Scorpion Wind Scorpion

Solifuge.
Wind scorpions are like shrews: they have to eat almost constantly to fuel their frenetic activity (which is mostly nocturnal). So, in addition to the temperature change, starvation may have played a role (I'm exaggerating only slightly:-)

 
What was really weird was tha
What was really weird was that we found a deceased and partially eaten side-blotched lizard (missing its tail and part of a rear leg) under a table in the room the next day. It was quite small, so perhaps the wind scorpion had just finished an encounter with that? The wind scorpion had just come from that general direction, so who knows.