Dr. Lauren Esposito

How many in a litter?

Well, it depends.

So like scorpions vary a lot in size and some smaller species maybe only have two scorpionlings.

That's a technical term, scorpionlings.

That's that's the first cute thing I've heard.

It is.

It's cute.

And then like in other species, the highest number recorded is like 156.

Oh, that's a lot of babies.

That's a lot of babies.

And then she takes care of them.

Then she takes care of them.

She keeps them on her back for the first, well, instar is the technical term, but it means like the first time they molt their exoskeleton and grow a new one.

And at that point, they'll kind of start to wander away from her.

Sometimes they'll stay a little longer.

Sometimes they'll leave immediately.

But that's sort of the end of the parent-child relationship.

My favorite Scorpion fact is that we are still describing new species every single year from the United States.

Wow.

Which I think, for me, that's like an important fact because as a kid I always grew up thinking that we've discovered everything there is to discover.