Courting pair (female on left)
H. arizonensis is our largest (~15 cm from tip of claw to tip of sting) native scorpion, which is common in many parts of the desert SW, where it seems to prefer silty-sand soils that are easy to burrow in.
Relatively little work has been done of the biology of these scorpions or their venom. They are very robust scorpions with powerful claws and copious quantities of venom. It occupies abandoned rodent burrows and/or digs its own deep burrows and we have seen them taking a large variety of crickets, grasshoppers,
Relatively little is known about the venom, which appears to be primarily insecticidal with little mammalian toxicity. An antimicrobial toxin has been characterized from a related species and a proteomic analysis has been done, but very little is known about physiological modes of action.