Bark scorpions · Tucson, AZ
The Arizona Bark Scorpion and How to Spot It Around a Tucson Home
Small, light tan and happy to climb a wall: how to tell a bark scorpion from the rest, where it hides around the house and how to keep it out.
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Know it on sight
The Arizona bark scorpion
The Arizona bark scorpion is a small, light tan scorpion with a slender tail and thin pincers, and it is the scorpion found inside homes in the Sonoran Desert more than any other.
Most scorpions in the yard stay on the ground. The bark scorpion is the one that turns up on a bedroom wall, in a bathtub or on the ceiling over the bed, because it climbs where the others do not. That habit is what brings it indoors, and it is why knowing this one on sight matters more than knowing the rest.
How to identify a bark scorpion
A bark scorpion is about two to three inches long and climbs walls and ceilings, and its color, its tail and its pincers set it apart from every other scorpion in the yard.
Check for the four marks of a bark scorpion:
- ColorLight tan colorPale straw to yellowish tan from claws to stinger, never black or deep brown.
- TailSlender tailLong and thin, often held curled to one side instead of straight up.
- PincersThin pincersNarrow, delicate claws, much slimmer than a desert hairy scorpion's.
- HabitClimbs wallsFound on walls and ceilings, often upside down, where other scorpions do not go.
Where to look
Where bark scorpions hide in and around a home
Bark scorpions hide under rocks, wood and debris outside, and in dark, tight spaces inside, such as wall gaps, shoes, closets and bedding.
They spend the day tucked into this "harborage" and come out after dark to hunt, so a quiet yard at noon says little about what is there at night.
Outside, they shelter under and inside these:
- Rocks and landscape boulders
- Stacked firewood and lumber
- Debris, leaf litter and yard clutter
- Cracks and gaps in block walls
Inside, check the dark, tight spots first:
- Gaps in walls and around baseboards
- Shoes left on the floor
- Closets and stored boxes
- Bedding that touches the floor
After dark
Finding scorpions with a blacklight
A scorpion's shell glows under ultraviolet light, so a blacklight picks out bark scorpions on walls and in yards at night.
A light tan scorpion on a tan wall is nearly invisible in daylight. Under a blacklight it shines a bright blue-green against the dark. A blacklight is the tool we use to find scorpions, and it is the quickest way to see how many you really have and where they come from.
A night check with a blacklight goes like this:
- Wait for full darkScorpions hunt at night, and the glow shows best with no other light around.
- Sweep low and slowWork the base of the walls, block walls, gravel beds and patio edges.
- Note where they gatherClusters point to the cracks and beds they are living in.
What a bark scorpion sting does
A bark scorpion sting can cause intense pain and numbness, and it can cause severe symptoms in young children and older adults.
Anyone stung should report it to poison control, who can say whether the sting needs a doctor. Keep the person calm, and if you can catch the scorpion safely in a jar, it helps to know for sure which kind it was.
Keep them outside
Keeping bark scorpions out of the house
You should seal the gaps they use to get in, clear the debris they hide under and treat the cracks and beds where they live, and that combination keeps bark scorpions out of the house.
Spraying the one you see does little on its own, because the rest are still in the cracks and the gravel. In the trade the sealing is called "exclusion", and treating straight into the gaps they live in is "crack-and-crevice treatment", often with a drying "desiccant dust" that reaches where a spray cannot. Any product should go down by its label; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's guide to pest control and pesticide safety covers how to use them safely at home.
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Exclusion sealing, dust and steel wool barriers go after the root causes:
- Seal the gaps around doors, pipes and walls
- Pack steel wool into openings they slip through
- Dust the cracks and voids where they hide
- Clear the rocks, wood and clutter by the house
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Scorpions on the walls?
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