California common scorpion
Paruroctonus silvestrii
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsScorpions, ticks and friendsDeserts and dry places8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The California common scorpion is a mottled grey brown scorpion with thin pincers. It digs a burrow in dry ground and lives inside. Under its tail it has four brown stripes.
Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
The coast of California and Baja California, in dry places
Length
4.5 cm (1.8 in)
most are a little smaller than thisWhat does it eat?
Like other scorpions, it catches insects and other small animals.

How big is it?
How long is it?
๐as long as 8 grains of rice in a row๐ฝ๏ธcould run across a dinner table in 2.1 seconds
How big is California common scorpion compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
California common scorpion about 1.7 km/h (1.1 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its other name, stripe-tailed scorpion, comes from the four brown lines under its tail.
2
It digs its own burrow to live in.
3
Its pincers are quite thin and skinny.
you asked
Most asked questions about California common scorpion
?How big is the California common scorpion?
Most are a bit less than 4.5 cm long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Paruroctonus silvestrii
- Group
- Scorpions, ticks and friends
- Family
- Vaejovidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Scorpiones > Vaejovidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Stripe-tailed scorpion
Where the facts come from
- Paruroctonus silvestrii (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Marshal Hedin from San Diego. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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