ASU-Ask A Biologist

1998 NOVEMBER MYSTERY IMAGE

This is a scanning electron microscope image of the mouth of a scorpion.

How does a scorpion eat?

First the scorpion breaks its captured prey into tiny pieces. When the pile is big enough, the scorpion spits strong digestive juices onto the pile of bug bits. The juices melt the bits into soft sticky stew. When the stew is soft enough, the scorpion sucks the gooey pieces into its mouth.
(Image by Life Sciences Visualization Group)

If you want to learn more about scorpions, check out our article
Not So Scary Scorpions... if you dare.

For those of you that are curious, here are some numbers from our list of guesses.

79% guessed that is was the mouth of a spider or an insect.
10% guessed that it was an image of fangs (from long list of animals).

Some of the creative single answers are listed below.

An egyptian mummification
The creature for the movie Aliens