It still stings

Spiders, snakes and scorpions boast the ability to arouse a primal instinct of fear and repulsion. Party animals of untrammeled conviviality shed all pretence of composure and plunge into a gutteral panic at the sight of creatures usually too reclusive to pose a real threat to domestic affairs. For those who cherish this cerebral connection to more primitive times, there is scant relief in the surprising abundance of these terrifying taxa in woods within eyeshot of urbane homes.

Scorpions are usually invisible under sunlight, save a few young punks who brave the madness of midday. Most save their energies for twilight, when the soul-sapping strength of visible rays gives way to the sustained heat of a night long hunt. Emerging from cracks in the bark of favoured trees, the well-armed arachnids seek out a menu of soft-shelled menaces.

Nocturnal insects – the cockroaches, katydids and hoppers that pretend to play in the dark – are easy pickings for pincers that probably rip the bugs apart without bothering to sting them. More robust prey – lizards, mice and garden variety spiders – would be subdued with a dose of venom. Many, though, go for big game, racing up trunks with uncanny speed in pursuit of large spiders that pack a powerful punch of their own. Even hairy mygalomorphs, who wield a pair of murderous pick axes, are wont to lose the battle royales waged every evening in the canopies and under a carpet of brown leaves.

A stick of black light offers the clearest guide to these bark scorpions as they nestle in living cracks of doom or hang from lianas that threaten to swing the other way. The bright bluegreen of their stiff exocuticles is an organic artefact of coumarins that glow under the glare of cold radiation. Displaying remarkable coyness, the scorpions retreat into their hideouts when threatened with a gentle finger. They offer no easy answers to why blindsided predators should harbour compounds of such charisma. Even the very identity of this arboreal species is suspect, for the study of natural secrets has largely died out in this age of artificial goods. And no amount of quiet intuition can reveal why fierce love turns to dust or soothe the ferocious pain of a sting that fails to kill but refuses to heal.