"charliekilo" wrote in message
. net...
Luckily, after more than 8 years as an Austin resident I've only had two
personal experiences with local scorpions which raises a question. I live
a couple of miles west of the Arboretum area and many of our neighbors
(even as close as next door) get scorpions in their houses fairly
regularly - why we don't get many is beyond me.

It seems that I only hear about small, white, almost transparent scorpions
being common around here. However, my two experiences have been with solid
black scorpions...one was almost as big as my hand and the other, just
last night, was only about 2 inches long.

My question, are black scorpions common in our area?


In my 10+ years here in Austin, I have only encountered one scorpion. It
was one of the white/sandy/tan ones you mentioned but it was a decent size.
Strangely enough, he was in my toilet sleeping with the turds. Seriously -
this was a new house so I was on my knees at crapper level sealing the
grout. I lifted the seat for some reason and nearly had a heart attack. I
have no idea if he crawled in there or he was caught up in the pipes when
they turned on the water for the first time.... I was a bit uneasy for a
while since his coloration matched my carpet almost exactly... and I have
two young boys. But - this has been my first and only sighting thus far.

We did have a rather large rattlesnake that was run over in front of my
house over the summer. This snake was easily 3ft+... Big and healthy too.

Our new house backs to a greenbelt so this will be our first full
spring/summer/fall here. It will be interesting to see what creatures try
to invade my house.