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FOUND HERE: AMAZING ARTHROPOD

Wind scorpion. Kevin Stohlgren

Wind scorpion in Arizona. (Kevin Stohlgren)

By DIRK STEVENSON

A search this winter for imperiled snakes led to the discovery of a remarkable arthropod that hadn’t been documented before in Georgia.

In December, Matt Moore and Ben Stegenga of The Orianne Society were doing a DNR-supported survey for federally threatened eastern indigo snakes at Little Ocmulgee State Park near McRae when they saw a fresh snake track at a large gopher tortoise burrow. Using a burrow camera, they scoped the tunnel to find an eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake curled about 6 feet from the entrance.

The men watched the rattler, chuckling as it tongue-flicked the cylinder that houses the camera, before getting ready to go. Then they noticed an odd-looking invertebrate scurrying between their legs in the burrow’s sugar-sand apron.

It was a wind scorpion, and apparently the first recorded for the state. …

Read Dirk’s post on the Wildlife Resources Division blog about these unusual and fearsome-looking invertebrates.

Well-known Georgia naturalist Dirk Stevenson is a herpetologist and Longleaf Savannas Initiative director with The Orianne Society. He blogs at The Naturalist and can be reached at [email protected].