Emperor scorpion
Amazing fact
Emperor scorpions sense the terrain with special sensory organs behind their legs.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
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Emperor scorpions sense the terrain with special sensory organs behind their legs.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Emperor scorpion
- Scientific name
- Pandinus imperator
- Japanese name
- ダイオウサソリ
- Group
- Tiny animals
- Class
- Arachnida
- Order
- Scorpiones
- Family
- Scorpionidae
- Genus
- Pandinus
A scorpion of West African forests that is active at night.
Its glossy black body has huge pincers. Under ultraviolet light it glows bluish green.
It mainly eats termites. Adults usually tear their prey apart with their strong pincers instead of using the stinger.
How the Emperor scorpion lives
Young scorpions use the stinger on their tail to kill prey. They make their homes in burrows under places such as leaf litter. They have also been observed living in groups. When cornered, they take a defensive stance with their stinger ready.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- average 20 cm
- Lifespan
- 5–8 years in captivity
- Active
- At night (nocturnal)
- Diet
- Insects, other arthropods and small vertebrates
- Range
- West Africa
Where the Emperor scorpion has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ダイオウサソリ
- 简体中文
- 帝王蝎
- 繁體中文
- 帝王蠍
- 한국어
- 황제전갈
- Español
- Escorpión emperador
- Français
- Scorpion empereur
- Deutsch
- Kaiserskorpion
- Português (Brasil)
- Escorpião imperador
- Italiano
- Scorpione imperatore
- العربية
- عقرب إمبراطوري
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Kalajengking kaisar
- Tiếng Việt
- Bọ cạp hoàng đế
- Русский
- Императорский скорпион
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Pandinus imperatorChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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