Desert Basics

I live in southern Nevada on the edge of Sloan Canyon. I currently have seven giant desert hairy scorpions, two giant sand scorpions, two giant dune scorpions, one devil scorpion, two darkling beetles, a large desert wolf spider and a female desert blonde tarantula named Blondie.

My dad and I have been trudging around in the Sloan Canyon area by our house since I was three. We moved into the house in 2005, and from then on we have explored and found more arthropods & reptiles than the average person sees in a lifetime.

I found my first Hadrurus Spadix, or the black desert hairy scorpion, when I was seven. My dad and I were clueless as to what it was. To us it was a moving flash of orange-yellow, and then it stopped, tail seven inches in the air, and I made a move to grab it at the tip of the tail with my forceps. It just jerked out of their grasp. Finally I developed a strategy that I still use today—that is to grab the base of the tail with the forceps instead of the tip, which only works with small scorps. Bigger scorps can jerk the tip of their tail out of the forceps because there is less surface area to hold on to.

Hope you enjoyed my first post I will try to post regularly.