Scorpion Devouring Murder-Mice Stalk the Badlands of The West

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I have been stung by a bark scorpion before as I tried to remove it from the sink and return it to the wild. My finger was burning all day long, but I was ok other than that. I have seen those mice before. Cute little guys. I bear no ill will toward the mouse or the scorpion.

reply to post by CaticusMaximus

I think it crosses most people's minds. But reality has a sneaky way of interrupting those kinds of thoughts. Like with that guy, it was his gloves/hands or the mouse. He chose the mouse.

I don't blame him. I've been caught in similar situations. I go out of my way not to kill most of the time, but life has a habit of putting you in strange circumstances. You're forced to react.

It may be possible to live peacefully with all vermin, but I don't know of it unless it means living inside a space station. But even then vermin show up. Just recently the space station had a bad case of the mushrooms. Yep! Mushrooms on a wall next to the bathroom, I think. And even as things seem peaceful inside our homes, outside it's war. Bugs are eating each other 24 hours/day.

They say that God created this life but God isn't to blame since we're the ones that screwed up. But I still think God gets some perverse satisfaction from it since God knew what would happen. In another thread somebody stated that God is like a man that watches his own daughter being raped by another man. Only when the man is done raping her does God stand up and punish him.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Before you edited your post I saw you mentioned spiders and wishing there was a way to tell them to bugger off.....

Down here in Australia, as most know, pretty much everything wants to kill you including the spiders. Redbacks and Funnel Webs, the 2 most poisonous spiders on the planet, like to hide in shoes or under things where humans would put their hands. One effective way of keeping them away is to not kill the even bigger and scarier looking Huntsman spider - they love to munch on other creepy crawlies. When Aussies see a Huntsman that is too close for comfort, like right above our heads on the roof or something, we simply get a broom and place the little bugger back outside to continue his hunting. While they are scary looking and creepy, their bite to humans at worst makes one a bit ill and they will generally scamper away from a human that gets too close.

Just another reason to love living in Australia.......

it is the Logic of EA*RTH

once upon a time i worked at a restaurant that had a rat problem. in the ally where the dumpsters sat and the surrounding square where all the tourists would plant their fat asses. it was alarming sometimes when you'd walk thru the square at night and see a trash can rocking back and forth violently. only to have the trash can tip over and ten rats scurry in different directions. once we caught a live rat in the restaurant in one of those sticky traps, my boss was cheap and wouldn't buy a trap that would kill it but instead left it caught, pissed off, and screeching. of course i was the lucky manager that had to stumble on the occupied trap. having to drown the(not so) little monster was a bit unnerving to say the least.

WHAT? you fed the mouse plague to your Dog!
if your dog starts eating cheese Run!
unless he just DIES!

Originally posted by DocHolidaze
reply to post by Xoanon

 

i caught a mouse the other day that came through a water logged wall in my bathroom, i had my leather gloves on as not to get a mouse plague.

this thing was pissed it grabbed on with its little teeth and tried for blood and was screaming at me like a demon., i was going to take him out to the field and let him go but when he showed me the evil inside him i freed him from his pissed off existence and feed him to my dog. now that my dog has a taste for mouse blood hopefully she will get any of the demon mouses cronies that are coming to enact vengeance for there fallen brother.

Originally posted by eXia7

Originally posted by Lichter daraus
reply to post by DocHolidaze

 

You seriously just killed the innocent little guy because he was scared of you and wanted to get away?
Man,you really should have just taken it to the field, would have been a better choice imho.

Not trying to be a dick, I just have soft spot for rodents. Have had many pet rats over the years.

You do know rats and mice tend to carry diseases, as they've traveled through all kinds of nasty things, such as toilets, fecal matter, trash cans, dumpsters.

And they also reproduce and spread like the plague, I've seen documentaries where rats and mice get into corn and grain stocks, and there are literally thousands. They might be cute, but they are a nuisance animal.

Yes, i know this as i clearly stated i have had many rats as pets, having them as pets ,you tend to learn quite a bit about them. I would never keep a wild rodent as a pet but i wouldnt kill it either.

In my opinion this is the best and most interesting grasshopper mouse hunting video of the bunch.

Watch this poor scorpion get totally owned by two martial-mice working in tandem. It seems almost ritualistic, the way that they take this scorpion down, but I am sure I am projecting.

I'm glad that these things are not our size.

reply to post by Xoanon


wow that's crazy it does look almost ritualistic.
awesome video thanks for that.

reply to post by Xoanon


First of all, Sam Houston State University is NOT located in Austin. It is in Huntsville, about 3.5 hours away. Also, I cannot find anything on Ashlee Rowe being affiliated with that school. It appears that the original link with the story never got their facts straight, and that bothers me.

To discover their secret, Ashlee Rowe of Sam Houston State University in Austin, Texas, and colleagues examined how the venom affected the nerve cells of mice

The research itself is pretty interesting, but WHY list someone that goes/is a part of a school that doesn't exist in that location. Sam Houston State has never been affiliated with Austin, TX. It is however, affiliated with Texas State University, which is in San Marcos, about 30 minutes from Austin.

I've done some research, and this appears to be the original study from 2004, published in 2006 under North Carolina State.
Link to Study

Anyway, it was an interesting read! I love how animals have evolved in such a way to not be affected by certain neurotoxins and capsaicin. This mouse looks like it has a bright future.

reply to post by fictitious


It is interesting, I would love to get one domesticated if possible and have it as a pet.

Originally posted by Lichter daraus
reply to post by fictitious

 

It is interesting, I would love to get one domesticated if possible and have it as a pet.

edit on 07/16/2009 by Lichter daraus because: (no reason given)

If you didn't feed it scorpions and the like, it would probably eat through the walls of your house 50 times faster and then start eating your toes. I'd be a little creeped out having one. But maybe you could construct and army of them and have a great weapon of destruction that no one would want to touch!

reply to post by fictitious


Thanks so much for going the extra distance to get that cleared up. It's funny, I know this topic can be found elsewhere on the web. But I was thinking that at least our thread had all the good videos and articles, and I was thinking that all of this stuff is better on ATS.

You just proved why. Thanks for adding a whole other dimension to the mouse-melange.

Originally posted by fictitious

Originally posted by Lichter daraus
reply to post by fictitious

 

It is interesting, I would love to get one domesticated if possible and have it as a pet.

edit on 07/16/2009 by Lichter daraus because: (no reason given)

If you didn't feed it scorpions and the like, it would probably eat through the walls of your house 50 times faster and then start eating your toes. I'd be a little creeped out having one. But maybe you could construct and army of them and have a great weapon of destruction that no one would want to touch!

Lol, i think one would be enough and i could feed it all kinds of bugs and what not, there is a reptile shop near by that has all kinds of bugs, tarantulas all the way to scorpions and crickets.

Originally posted by Kryties
reply to post by jonnywhite

 

Before you edited your post I saw you mentioned spiders and wishing there was a way to tell them to bugger off.....

Down here in Australia, as most know, pretty much everything wants to kill you including the spiders. Redbacks and Funnel Webs, the 2 most poisonous spiders on the planet, like to hide in shoes or under things where humans would put their hands. One effective way of keeping them away is to not kill the even bigger and scarier looking Huntsman spider - they love to munch on other creepy crawlies. When Aussies see a Huntsman that is too close for comfort, like right above our heads on the roof or something, we simply get a broom and place the little bugger back outside to continue his hunting. While they are scary looking and creepy, their bite to humans at worst makes one a bit ill and they will generally scamper away from a human that gets too close.

Just another reason to love living in Australia.......

you dont speak for all australians.

i smoosh them. any spider.
hunstman, wolf, redback, white tail.
smoosh smoosh smoosh.

a more effective way to avoid them is bug bomb your house with mortien bug bombs!
4 hours later sweep the dead bugs out of the house.

but i will try to let any snakes in the house out without killing them. brown snakes etc.

reply to post by okamitengu


You would save so much money if you just left the Huntsmans alone, they really do a bang up job of devouring the other nasties.

That and Huntsmans seem to have an ability to survive just about anything, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they survive nuclear blasts by flattening out and hiding under something

You get brown snakes inside? You do realise they are the second deadliest snake in the world don't you?

I live where there are a ton of Bark Scorpions, as well as lots of mice. I have to always wear shoes in the house, even in the summer, because as soon as the sun begins to go down, the scorpions come out. My cats tend to alert me as to their presence, by staring at them and slapping them with their paws.

All my cats have been stung by these scorpions, even a small kitten we rescued was stung on the nose when she trapped an angry scorpion in the corner. She rubbed her nose a bit, and then went right back to slapping it. Cats do not react to the sting, just like the grasshopper mouse.

Only difference is, the cats will not eat the scorpions. Actually, I've never seen them eat any arachnid.

I have seen my cats with a few mice that look like the grasshopper mouse. They are fighters and scream bloody murder when the cats trap them. I usually let the cats have their kill, but now that I know they are scorpion eaters, I'll have to liberate them from Fluffy's chops and set them back outside.

Very interesting, thanks for the info! I wonder if these mice will eat a vinegaroon (aka "whiptail scorpion")....bigger than a tarantula, very black, and they spit acetic acid when threatened. Yup, we got those here too.

Once upon a time there was a scorpion standing by a stream. Soon, a grasshopper mouse comes swimming by and says "say pal, can I give you a lift across?" to which the scorpion replies "@#$% that!" and skitters away.