Dr. Lauren Esposito

Like they're facing each other and they'll put their, squish their little scorpion mouths together and they'll like kiss each other with their mouth.

Come on.

And then sometimes there's a sting, which is like, you know, the sort of kinky side of dating.

But eventually, if she's pleased with all of this, then she'll pick up the sperm package that he's left for her and she'll store his sperm until she feels like the conditions are good for having babies and which point she'll inseminate herself.

She has control over when she's getting pregnant.

So she like kind of evaluates the environment.

And if the conditions are good, if it's like a good rainy year with lots of prey, then she'll allow for internal fertilization using the sperm.

And the craziest thing is... Wait, where does she keep the sperm?

It's like in a little scorpion purse inside her body.

Like genuinely.

There's like a little pocket and she stores the sperm inside the pocket.

So scorpions, unlike all other arachnids and basically all insects, for the most part, they get pregnant.

So they inseminate themselves.

And then that sperm, you know, combines with all the eggs that she has in her body.

And those eggs start to grow into embryos inside her body, just like a mammal gets pregnant.

And they don't come out until they're fully formed little scorpionlings.

That's unusual, right?

It's pretty unusual.

And they even like it's so crazy because they come out like a little amniotic sack, just like a vertebrate does.

And then the sack bursts as she's giving birth and then they crawl up onto her back and she takes care of them after that.