Friday, September 24, 2010

Colony of Scorpions Eating Winged Termites

I had witnessed this behaviour on June 20th around 6 AM in the morning at Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Orissa at a place called Chaurasimal.

This was just after the first rains and there were winged termites coming from within the ground from various places.

But what struck us was that in a small area of around 6'x6' there were close to 25 scorpions catching the winged termites with around 5-6 caught by each. Some even had upto 8-9 in both claws (included). They would then go down holes in the soil and stock them. They would then come back for more. 

I had never seen so many scorpions in one place leave aside catching prey like this in such a large scale. We saw the phenomenon for close to an hour or so.
Sharing a few images to show how it looked. Unfortunately I had left my wide angle lens back at the camp. Lesson learnt.


ID: Scorpions (Heterometrus swammerdami)
Location: Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Orissa
Equipment: Canon EOS 1000D, Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM




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