Ongoing research Field and Laboratory methods Prey, predators and parasites Anatomy and Morphology Venom Details and Pictures Medical Usage Geographical Range Scorpions in Captivity Reproductive behavior Myths and Legends General Features
Introduction

What has your perception of the scorpion always been? To many, they put their beliefs in legends and folklore, which had always given the scorpion a bad reputation, always depicting the evil yet powerful demon-spirit. Thus to many, it is something of fear, respect yet of overwhelming curiosity to what it actually is.

However, unknown to many, the scorpion is actually a largely common animal, found all over the world and has the vast variety of more than 4000 species distributed throughout the world. Its diversity and its ever-interesting behavioral activities had enthralled people all over the world for centuries, from the wise men of the past to the scientists and naturalists of today.

Also, the scorpion itself is an interesting organism. Its history can be traced back to 430 million years ago, during the Silurian Era. The scorpion had not evolved much ever since. This signifies its amazing resilience and adaptiveness to the changing environment to allow it to survive much unchanged for such a long period and hints that some of its properties found millions of years before would still be present.

This brings our attention to the most valuable commodity of a scorpion: its venomous sting that had led to much scrutiny by the scientific community. The venom consists of small proteins, some of which have an average mass smaller than snake venom. The venom is also highly toxic, and for some species, the venom has been found to be about 100,000 times more toxic than cyanide! Hence if these properties are true, could the venom have a significant effect on pathogenic microbes? What else then, are the reasons why have we probed into the specific areas of our project?

Reasons...

1. The traditional Chinese medicinal theory of "Poison against Poison" The "Poison" here may include things other than toxins - in this case, "Poison" refers to any organism or substance that has a detrimental effect on human health. Even in ancient Chinese history, the scorpion has been regarded as a "Poison", together with other organisms like snakes and toads. Based on the above definition of "Poison", microbes such as pathogenic bacteria can similarly be classified as a "Poison" since they have the ability to cause diseases. Hence, in our experiments, we have tried to explore the validity of the theory of "Poison against Poison".

2. Similar effects had been found in snake venom In many earlier studies made on snake venom, it has been found that venom from many species of snakes were able to inhibit bacterial growth. As scorpion venom and snake venom share some common compounds, we hypothesize that scorpion venom might also have similar effects on microbes. We therefore embarked on a project to find out the validity of our hypothesis.

Throughout the project, we have consistently used crude scorpion (Heterometrus longimanus) venom.

H.longimanus was used because : 1. It is a relatively unexplored specie of scorpion - most other medical research had only focused on medically important (i.e. lethal) scorpions from the family Buthidae, like Androctonus australis and Parabuthus transvaalicus. Therefore, there might be unexplored properties of this specie of scorpion that could be harnessed to the advantage of Mankind.

2. It is one of the most common species of scorpion in our region. One advantage of this is that obtaining this specie would not be as difficult as obtaining other rarer species for research. Another plus is that people in the region, who mostly have negative ideas about scorpions, will be able to accept the animal better once they learn of its usefulness to Man.

3. H.longimanus is in the family Scorpionidae, whose venom are relatively mild as compared to those of the Buthidae. Therefore, experimentation with non- lethal species like this would be much safer, especially in the processes where they will have to be handled, like the milking. It has been reported that envenomation resulted in localised swelling and pain, which is mild when compared to envenomation by species from the Buthidae family, where paralysis and death can result.

Therefore, by making use of scorpion venom, we hope to utilize its toxicity and and lethalness, and gear these useful effects towards the benefit of Mankind, instead of letting the scorpion remain as a fear to people.