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How to identify it
- Every scorpion has two pincer-bearing arms in front, four pairs of legs, and a slim, five-segmented tail tipped with a bulb-shaped stinger that can arch over the back.[1][2]
- Comb-like sense organs called pectines sit under the body between the last pairs of legs and help the scorpion feel surfaces and find prey.[1]
- Despite having two eyes on top of the head and several more along the front corners, scorpions see poorly and rely mostly on touch.[1][2]
- The striped bark scorpion shown here is about 2 1/2 inches long, yellowish tan with two broad dark stripes along the back and a dark triangle on the front of the head above the eyes.[1]
- Its slender pincers and long, thin tail are the quickest field marks. Males have longer tails than females, and Big Bend populations can be faintly marked or pale.[1]
- Scorpions glow brightly under ultraviolet (black) light, which makes them easy to spot at night.[2][5]
Look-alikes
| Look-alike | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Arizona bark scorpion | Lives throughout Arizona and in the extreme southeast of California and southwestern New Mexico. It has a very thin tail and narrow pincers and a plain yellow body without stripes, and it is the best climber. UC IPM gives up to 3 inches long; Arizona's poison center says about 1 1/2 inches at maturity.[2][6] |
| Southern devil scorpion | A native scorpion, up to about 2 5/8 inches, found on rocky hillsides, in crawl spaces and around homes in several southeastern states, including Kentucky.[7] |
| Arizona hairy scorpion | A burrowing desert scorpion of Southern California and Arizona and the largest in North America at 5 to 7 inches at maturity.[2] |
Where it lives
Scorpions are found in the southern and southwestern United States and are most diverse in desert areas. Texas has 18 species, but only the striped bark scorpion occurs throughout the state; the southern devil scorpion reaches Kentucky and other southeastern states. Besides Arizona, Texas and Nevada, six other southern states report more than 100 stings a year to poison centers.[3][1][7][4][2]
Biology and life cycle
Scorpions stay sheltered by day and come out at night, which helps them control body temperature and save water.[1][3]
They eat insects, spiders, centipedes, earthworms and other scorpions, crushing prey with the pincers; many sit and wait for prey to wander close.[1][7][2]
Young are born live and ride on the mother's back until their first molt, then disperse and molt five or six times to reach adulthood.[1][2]
Striped bark scorpions mate in fall, spring or early summer; after about 8 months a female gives birth to 13 to 47 young, about 31 on average.[1]
A striped bark scorpion lives about 4 years. Texas A&M gives a typical scorpion life span of 3 to 8 years with a few species reaching 20 to 25; UC IPM gives 3 to 5 years, with some species living 10 to 15.[1][2]
Unlike many burrowing desert species, the striped bark scorpion doesn't dig; it climbs trees and walls and hides under rocks, boards, logs and debris.[1]
Damage and signs
- Scorpions come indoors through poorly sealed doors and windows, foundation cracks, unscreened attic vents and gaps around plumbing; the bark scorpion needs only a 1/16-inch crack.[2][7]
- Striped bark scorpions are often found in attics and may move down into living areas when attics get hot.[1]
- Indoors, scorpions hide in closets, behind baseboards, inside walls, in crawl spaces and under objects on the floor.[2][7]
- Scorpions aren't aggressive; stings tend to happen when someone disturbs a hiding one, such as by picking up an object or putting on a shoe. Poison-center records show nearly all U.S. stings happen at home, mostly in warm months and in the evening.[7][2][4]
Health risk
Most U.S. scorpion stings cause pain at the site and can be managed at home; in ten years of national poison-center data, pain was the main effect and 90 percent of cases were handled on site. The Arizona bark scorpion is the exception: its venom can cause serious nerve and muscle effects, with young children at highest risk.[4][8][6][9]
Control
Prevention
Shake out shoes, clothing and towels before use, look under objects before picking them up, wear gloves and long sleeves for yard work, and brush a scorpion off your skin instead of swatting it.[7][2][3]
Keep them out
Weatherstrip doors and windows, caulk around eaves and pipes, keep screens tight, and plug brick weep holes with copper mesh, screen or pieces of nylon scrubber.[1][2][7]
University of Kentucky advises doing sealing and cleanup in fall or winter, before scorpions become active in spring.[7]
Sanitation
Clear trash, logs, boards, stones and bricks from around the foundation, keep grass mowed short, and only bring in firewood that goes straight onto the fire.[1][2][6]
Trim shrubs and branches that touch the house, since they give scorpions a path to the roof.[1][2]
Traps and physical control
Sticky boards along walls and under furniture give long-term, nontoxic capture; a scorpion can also be trapped under a glass jar slid onto stiff paper.[7][2]
Pesticides
Insecticides alone don't control scorpions well; if used, apply them along the foundation and up to 1 foot of the exterior wall and around doors and other entry points, following the label.[1][2][7]
Texas A&M lists synthetic active ingredients such as bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, cypermethrin, deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin and permethrin; plant-oil products break down faster and give shorter control.[1]
Finding scorpions with a blacklight
A portable ultraviolet (black) light makes scorpions glow brightly, so you can survey the yard and house after dark and remove them.[2]
Check at night, when scorpions leave their hiding places to hunt.[1][3]
What a sting does
Common sting symptoms are stinging or burning at the site with little swelling and extreme pain when the spot is tapped. Arizona's poison center adds numbness and tingling that can travel and skin that is very sensitive to touch and temperature.[3][6]
Severe stings can cause restlessness, roving eye movements, drooling, slurred speech, muscle twitching, convulsions and trouble breathing. NIOSH says symptoms usually subside within 48 hours, although bark scorpion stings can be life-threatening.[3][8]
Outside Arizona, poison-center cases more often involve local redness and swelling; in Arizona and Nevada severe whole-body symptoms are more common, and children under 10 there have the highest rates of hospital and ICU care.[4]
An antivenom is available at selected Arizona facilities. Among 145 Arizona patients treated, mostly children under 5, symptoms resolved quickly without allergic reactions.[10][11]
First aid for a scorpion sting
Clean the sting with soap and water and apply ice wrapped in a cloth, 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off, but don't submerge the area in ice water. Keep the limb still and remove tight rings and clothing.[8][3][6]
Call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 or a health care provider; Arizona's poison center says most stings in healthy young adults can be managed at home after that call. Stay calm and avoid sedatives, and catch or photograph the scorpion only if it is safe.[6][3][8]
An allergic reaction to a sting needs emergency care right away. Young children are the most vulnerable to bark scorpion venom; MedlinePlus says children 6 and younger are more likely to have harmful effects.[3][8][9]
Which U.S. scorpions are dangerous?
Centruroides is the only medically important scorpion genus in the United States, and of about 30 scorpion species in Arizona only the bark scorpion is considered life-threatening.[12][6]
The striped bark scorpion is a Centruroides too, but a 2021 venom study describes it as less toxic and suggests that may come from lower expression of its sodium beta toxin genes.[13]
Where sources disagree
Number of species: Texas A&M counts about 90 in the United States, UC IPM about 70 in North America, and MedlinePlus more than 40 in the United States.[1][2][8]
Bark scorpion size: UC IPM says up to 3 inches, while the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center says it reaches only about 1 1/2 inches at maturity.[2][6]
Bark scorpion name: UC IPM uses Centruroides exilicauda (formerly C. sculpturatus), while the Arizona poison center and recent medical papers use C. sculpturatus and treat the two as closely related species.[2][6][11]
Common questions
- Is the striped bark scorpion dangerous?
- Its sting is painful, but a 2021 venom study describes the species as less toxic than its Arizona relative, and national poison-center data show stings outside Arizona and Nevada mostly cause local pain, redness and swelling.[13][4]
- What should I do after a scorpion sting?
- Wash the sting, apply wrapped ice, keep the limb still and call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 to find out whether hospital care is needed. An allergic reaction needs emergency care right away, and young children are at the highest risk of severe effects.[8][3][6]
- Why do scorpions glow under a blacklight?
- The glow builds up as the scorpion's outer shell hardens. Chemists identified one of the glowing compounds in the striped bark scorpion as beta-carboline, a compound chemists have also traced in human cataracts.[5]
Sources
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, “Scorpions, ENTO-PU-032 (May 2022).” extensionentomology.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/scorpions.pdf (accessed 2026-11-11)
- University of California Statewide IPM Program, “Pest Notes: Scorpions, Publication 74110 (December 2011).” ipm.ucanr.edu/legacy_assets/PDF/PESTNOTES/pnscorpions.pdf (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIOSH, “Insects and Scorpions at Work (Sept. 28, 2026).” www.cdc.gov/niosh/outdoor-workers/about/insects-and-scorpions.html (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Journal of Medical Toxicology, via PubMed, “Kang and Brooks (2017), Nationwide scorpion exposures reported to US poison control centers from 2005 to 2015.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27921219/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Chemistry and Biology, via PubMed, “Stachel, Stockwell and Van Vranken (1999), The fluorescence of scorpions and cataractogenesis.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10421760/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, University of Arizona, “Scorpions.” azpoison.com/venom/scorpions (accessed 2026-11-11)
- University of Kentucky Entomology, “ENTFACT-633: Scorpions in Kentucky.” entomology.mgcafe.uky.edu/ef633 (accessed 2026-11-11)
- MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Scorpions (Medical Encyclopedia).” medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002850.htm (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Pediatric Emergency Care, via PubMed, “Skolnik and Ewald (2013), Pediatric scorpion envenomation in the United States: morbidity, mortality, and therapeutic innovations.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23283277/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- American Journal of Medicine, via PubMed, “Klotz, Yates, Smith, Dudley, Schmidt and Shirazi (2021), Scorpion stings and antivenom use in Arizona.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33631163/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Cutis, via PubMed, “Patel and Elston (2020), What's eating you? Bark scorpions (Centruroides exilicauda and Centruroides sculpturatus).” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32603387/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- American Family Physician, via PubMed, “Herness, Snyder and Newman (2022), Arthropod bites and stings.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35977137/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Toxins, via PubMed, “Bowman, Fitzgerald, Pummill, Rhoads and Yamashita (2021), Reduced toxicity of Centruroides vittatus may result from lowered sodium beta toxin gene expression and toxin protein production.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34822614/ (accessed 2026-11-11)
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Department of Entomology, “Striped bark scorpion (Field Guide to Common Texas Insects).” web.archive.org/web/20260630183826/texasinsects.tamu.edu/striped-bark-scorpion/ (accessed 2026-10-06). Archived copy (Internet Archive, captured 2026-06-30); the original page https://texasinsects.tamu.edu/striped-bark-scorpion/ was retired and now redirects to the AgriLife Extension Entomology home page.
- iNaturalist, “Centruroides vittatus taxon page (order and family).” www.inaturalist.org/taxa/119056 (accessed 2026-10-06)