Woman finds a scorpion in her flat in Lublin

Właściciele mieszkania udało się złapać skorpiona do słoika
The woman saw the scorpion on the floor
Źródło: Bartłomiej Gorzkowski
A woman spotted a scorpion crawling on the floor at her flat in Lublin. She caught the animal, put in a jar, placed it in the safe hands of specialists. It remains unknown how the scorpion found itself in the flat. Top working hypotheses assume it escaped from another flat, arrived in Poland in a fruit delivery or in some traveller's suitcase.

The situation took place in a flat at Onyksowa street in Lublin. "We received a call from the city guards, who, in turn, had been notified by owner of the flat. She found a scorpion on her floor," said Bartłomiej Gorzkowski, chief of Lublin Exotarium, operating under city Shelter for Stray Animals.

The scorpion belongs to the Euscorpius genus, commonly called small wood-scorpions
The scorpion belongs to the Euscorpius genus, commonly called small wood-scorpions
Źródło: Bartłomiej Gorzkowski

Escapee or stowaway

At the flat, it turned out the owner managed to catch the scorpion. The arachnid was in a jar. "Although the venom of this scorpion species isn't dangerous to humans, the encounter with it must have been quite a surprise. Such arachnids can be found at the Mediterranean Sea, that's why I asked her if, by chance, she spend vacation there. She replied she was planning to go," Gorzkowski said.

Maybe the scorpion took a stowaway ride in some neighbour's luggage. More likely, it escaped from someone's terrarium. It's also possible that it was carried to a store in a fruit case, and then further to the flat in a shopping bag. For instance, grapes are picked in the Mediterranean," he added.

The arachnid has been taken to an exotarium, while the Epicrates Foundation asks in social media: "Whose loss is it?".

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