Abstract
WILL Mr. Gillman or some other tell us how scorpions achieve suicide? The animal stings, as I know to my cost, by a backward lash out and straightening of the tail, and the force which drives the somewhat blunt point into the enemy goes on accumulating as the reversal becomes more complete, and reaches its maximum on or near the horizontal plane and at the furthest point of extension. But when the tail is drawn back above the animal's head, the point is turned upwards, and therefore away from the head, and even if it could be turned towards the head, there is no possible force to drive it through the tough or hard carapace.
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B. Suicide of the Scorpion. Nature 21, 325 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021325c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021325c0
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