(Malaga province) When was the first time you came across a green scorpion in Spain – bit of a shock, wasn’t it? It doesn’t matter that the locals say that it isn’t deadly, unless you’re very young, old or have a weak heart; it’s a bloody scorpion! Mind you, they aren’t for the Spanish; they’re alacranes rather than escorpiones.

Anyway, the point of the article is that there has been an alacran invasion in La Urbanizacion Quinta in Antequera, turning up in their dozens in gardens, garages and even inside houses.

Ana Belen was in her garage and had moved some of the logs that she had piled there for her winter fire. Out shot one of these blighters (classified as an arachnid) and sunk its sting into her big toe. After recovering from the shock, she went straight to hospital, as she is heavily pregnant and feared for her baby. Fortunately, it was a young specimen and hadn’t developed any poison.

What has produced this explosion of ‘nasties’ is a patch of overgrown land just across the road from the houses. All sorts of insects, rats and reptiles (snakes and lizards) have bred there and have to spend their summer holidays away from home. Normally, the said patch of land is fumigated for pests, but this wasn’t carried out this year.

On a personal note, we went up to the cortijo around the beginning of spring and found one sniggering just above the door frame in the bedroom… I introduced it to a large shovel, which left a nasty stain on the wall.

Just so you can sleep soundly tonight, only between 1,000 and 5,000 people die from these stings from the particularly poisonous ones each year…

(News: Antequera, Malaga, Andalucia)