SCORPIONS 85 



(Schultze, 1927). inE, carpathicus fourteen days (Berland, 1932)*, 

 in E. italicus ten to twelve days (Cloudsley-Thompson, 1951), 

 whilst in E. germanus it takes about sixteen days (Cloudsley- 

 Thompson, 1955a). No doubt however the length of time depends 

 much upon the season and temperature at which the animals are 

 living. The mother scorpion carries her young around but does 

 not feed them: they exist on the nourishment which they derive 

 from digesting the embryonic yolk. Quite white and measuring 

 only a few millimetres in length, they remain placidly on her back, 

 often completely hiding her body from view so that only the ap- 

 pendages and tail remain visible. If they should happen to fall off, 

 they make but feeble efforts to climb back and the stimulus for 

 this is of short duration and inhibited by light. Their tarsi possess 

 a specially modified pad which enables them to climb to their 

 mother's back. 



After the first moult the young acquire the typical scorpion-like 

 appearance after which they remain with their mother for a day 

 or two longer before finally scattering. Growth is accompanied by 

 moulting as in all Arthropoda; the old skin cracks around the cara- 

 pace and is shed completely, including the lining of the midgut 

 and hindgut and of the four pairs of lung-books situated on the 

 ventral side of the third to sixth pre-abdominal segments. The 

 total number of moults of most species is not exactly known and 

 may vary somewhat even in the same species, but it is believed 

 that there are eight stadia in Palamnaeus longimanus and seven in 

 Androctonus australis. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Identification 



GouGH, L. H. and Hirst, S. (1927) Key to identification of Egyptian 



scorpions. Min. Agr. Egypt Tech. Sci. Bull., No. 76, 1-8. 

 Kraepelin, K. (1899) Scorpiones und Pedipalpi. Das Tierreich., 8, 1-265. 

 Mello-Leitao (1945) Escorpioes Sul- Americanos. Arq. Mus. Nac. 



Brasil, 40, 1-468. 

 PococK, R. I. (1900) The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and 



Burma. Arachnida. London. 

 Vachon, M. (1952) Etudes sur les Scorpions. Alger. 

 Werner, F. (1935) Scorpiones, in H. G. Bro^^'s Klass. Or dn. Tierreichs,5f 



IV (4), 1-316. 



