Scorpions and Spiders

The other day I learned that the most dangerous scorpion to humans is not from America. It is the Arabian Fat-Tailed Scorpion, which is found throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including Qatar. Click the link below to see some pictures -- scary little buggers

http://www.tarsiger.co.uk/qatar_birds/qatar_birds_pages/scorpion_fat-tailed_2014-04-03_page.htm


I knew there were scorpions out in the desert -- scorpions live in pretty much any desert – but I didn't realize such a dangerous one was in Qatar. I'm going to guess they're quite rare as I'd never heard of anyone here getting stung by a scorpion and having to go to the hospital. That said, it is something to bear in mind so from now on whenever I’m out in the desert I’ll double-check under blankets and in hiding places like shoes.

How did I find this information out? From wiki-surfing after looking up brown recluse spiders, after reading news articles of a man that was bitten by a spider on a Qatar Airways flight. I wish the news articles would have more information, like how they determined that the spider was a brown recluse. The background to the bite (the spider was hiding in his clothes and bit him when he shifted his leg, the bite caused necrosis) is definitely in character with a recluse spider, but Brown Recluse spiders are native to America, and the man had been flying from Borneo to South Africa via Doha. The spider got away after it bit the guy and was not found, so how did doctors determine it was a brown recluse? I would have guessed that it was a different recluse spider, there are about 100 different Loxosceles (recluse) spiders so it might have been one from Borneo, possibly even an unknown species. Without more information who knows.