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Home » Forums » General Discussion

Help ID'ing scorpion

From Lucerne Valley, CA; southwest Mojave desert, 20 mi N of Big Bear Lake, 20 mi E of Victor Valley (Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, Phelan, Adelanto), San Bernardino county.
I've caught a few scorpions, I'm fairly certain all 3 of the same species, but I need help differentiating between if it's an Arizona Bark Scorpion, a Desert Hairy Scorpion, or even a Striped Bark Scorpion without its stripes and with lighter coloring.
Are there any sure-fire ways of distinguishing? All I have to go on is that I heard that Buthids (Bark Scorpions) have a triangular plate where the pectines meet the body. I saw a picture of the bottom of a Hairy Scorpion, and it appeared that the pectines emerged straight diagonally outward from the body, whereas with mine, the inner edges go down and inward rather than outward, forming, yes, a triangular plate.
I really want to know so I know how lethal of an animal I'm dealing with here!

I'll gladly post details of the scorpion I have, I may be able to post pictures, but I'd rather not list all of my observations into one lengthy post; if anybody can ask specific questions about it, I'll gladly describe as accurately as humanly possible what I see.
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Contributed by DNC2112 on 27 August, 2007 - 4:38am

If you take a stroll through the scorpion images
in the guide by clicking on the RECENT IMAGES tab, you will see which ones have comments. It will quickly become apparent from the quality of those comments who are the two or three people who visit BugGuide who really know their scorpions. Then you can click on their names and you will be taken to their contributor pages where (hopefully) you will find some contact information. Sorry that we are definitely not one of those two or three!
… john and jane balaban, 27 August, 2007 - 6:40pm login or register to post comments

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