These two scorpions have taken each other by the pincer and danced together as part of a mating ritual.
Jim Bartholomew, 62, captured the moment his two unorthodox pet scorpions engaged in a ritual known as Promenade á deux – a dancelike motion that the animals exhibit in order to procreate.
The predatory arachnids lock pinchers and appear to do the tango in order to determine a satisfactory location for the male to deposit his sperm, before pulling the female across it to deposit the sperm into her gonopore, a genital pore.
The lethal Arizona bark scorpion’s ritual lasts less than 30 seconds but can result in a pregnancy lasting anywhere from nine to 18 months, with a litter of up to one hundred scorpions possibly being born.
