Southern Unstriped Scorpion

• It breaks the cliché that scorpions are desert animals: it thrives in mountain rainforest with cold winters.
• Its sting is painful but comparable to a wasp's and of no medical significance.
• It is the only scorpion native to the eastern United States, and it dismantles the idea that scorpions are desert animals: it lives in moist mountain forests, among leaf litter.
• It is small and unobtrusive, dark brown in colour, and goes unnoticed.
• Its sting is painful but comparable to a wasp's, with no serious consequences.
• It tolerates cold far better than desert scorpions and overwinters beneath leaf litter and rocks.
• Like all scorpions, it fluoresces under ultraviolet light, and that is the most practical way to survey it in the forest at night.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (arachnid)

Habitat and environment

Leaf litter, fallen logs and rock outcrops of the humid forests of the Appalachians

Sources consulted: Universidad de Florida, Featured Creatures; Sissom, revisiones de Vaejovidae; Polis, The Biology of Scorpions

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.