Its name alone is enough to make you think twice about walking barefoot this summer.
The southern devil scorpion - with menacing pinchers, eight legs, fang-like appendages and a venomous stinger - has been found in Washington County, less than a half-mile northeast of The Meadows harness-racing track.
John Rawlins, head of invertebrate zoology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, says the scorpion isn't as dangerous as it looks -- and its discovery might mean Western Pennsylvania is the northernmost place this relatively harmless, albeit creepy, species calls home.
"The scorpion has been found in adjacent West Virginia, but until now, nobody ever produced a specimen here," said Rawlins, who manages a world-famous collection of an estimated 16 million insects at the Oakland museum.
The Carnegie acquired its southern devil scorpion -- known to scientists as Vejovis carolinianus -- in 1997 from Washington County residents who found the brown, inch-long insect on rock outcrops near their home.
Rawlins and his colleagues identified the species, and this year sought the advice of another bug expert from North Carolina who verified their findings of what could be the only scorpion indigenous to the Pittsburgh area.
It is possible the scorpion made its way here as a stowaway in a truck or in a bale of hay delivered to the racetrack.
Rawlins, however, believes the species is native to Western Pennsylvania but hadn't been identified because of its rarity even in the southeastern United States, where it is more common.
"We hear a lot about invasive species like the gypsy moth and tiger mosquito, but people tend to forget about things that are naturally rare or on the edge of their natural distribution," Rawlins said. "What really is needed to put a nail in the Pennsylvania record is another specimen."
Despite their formidable appearance and ability to deliver a painful sting, southern devil scorpions do not pose a serious threat to humans.
The nocturnal creatures normally live outdoors under logs, loose bark of trees and land stones in moist areas where they find their prey of millipedes and other insects. They rarely interact with people.
But soon after the discovery of the southern devil scorpion, another scorpion was collected at a construction company in nearby Canonsburg, Washington County.
The species of the second specimen -- Centruroides hentzi -- typically is found only in Florida and likely made its way to Pennsylvania in a lumber shipment since it was found so far out of its range, Rawlins said.
Like the southern devil scorpion, glands of the Florida scorpion secrete a neurotoxic venom that is deadly to insects and causes discomfort in humans. The sting is rarely fatal, and even then, death comes from extreme allergic reaction, not the toxin.
"The real story here is that these things are getting around," Rawlins said. "If this bug, why not other bugs that are more harmful?"
