Scorpion | Description, Habitat, Species, Diet, & Facts | Britannica

Reproduction and life cycle

Breeding is seasonal and generally occurs during the warm months, ranging from late spring through early fall. Males may travel hundreds of metres to find receptive females. It appears that males find females by localizing a pheromone that the female emits from the end of her abdomen. Mating in scorpions is preceded by a complicated and characteristic courtship initiated by the male. He first faces and grasps the female, using his pincers (pedipalps). Then the pair, directed by the male, moves sideways and backward in a dancelike motion called promenade à deux. These actions result from the efforts of the pair to find a smooth surface on which the male can extrude a glandular secretion that forms a stalk to which the spermatophore (sperm-containing structure) is attached. He then maneuvers the female so that her genital opening contacts the spermatophore. Once she is positioned over the spermatophore, physical contact with it causes spermatozoa to be ejected into the genital opening (gonopore) of the female. Males that remain near females after mating are sometimes killed and eaten.

In general, females mate multiple times. In some species, mating must occur after each clutch of offspring is produced in order to fertilize another clutch of eggs. In others, multiple clutches of offspring can be produced from the sperm stored from a single mating. There are at least two species known that can produce offspring without mating at all (parthenogenesis).

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The mother invests a great amount of time and energy in her offspring. Unlike most nonmammalian animals, scorpions are viviparous, giving birth to live young instead of laying eggs. Once fertilized, the eggs are retained in the female’s body, where the embryos are nourished in utero for periods varying from several months to a year. The birth process itself may last from several hours to several days. Temperate species usually give birth in spring and summer, whereas tropical species give birth throughout the year. Litter size averages 25, with a range of 1 to more than 100.

At birth a young scorpion is white and enveloped in a membrane, or chorion. After freeing itself, the immature scorpion crawls onto the mother’s back, where it remains for a period ranging from 1 to 50 days. During this time the young scorpions are defenseless and utilize food reserves in their bodies while receiving water transpired through the mother’s cuticle and taken up through their own. The young molt their soft embryonic cuticle for one that is fully functional when they assume independence. This early mother-young association is obligatory for newborns. Without it, they do not molt successfully and usually die. The young generally leave the mother soon after this first molt.

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As in all arthropods, growth is accompanied by molting (ecdysis). Scorpions molt an average of five times (the range is four to nine) before reaching maturity. The number of molts in some species is variable. In some Centruroides, for example, small males mature after four molts and large males after five. There are no reports of molting’s occurring after reproductive maturity has been reached.