A venomous hitchhiker has found a new home at the Victoria Bug Zoo -- and it turns out, staff may have to make room for more!
After returning from Mexico, Vancouver resident Gail Hammond found a scorpion in her luggage. She rescued it, taking it to a vet, who put it on YouTube.
Jaymie Chudiak at Victoria's Bug Zoo jumped at the chance to give it a home. Now that it's there Chudiak says it's appears to a female who is "gravid" -- bug talk for "pregnant:"
" Potentially gravid, yes! She is rather fat for a scorpion that's been in someone's luggage for a while."
Chudiak says they aren't sure what type of scorpion they have adopted:
"This one is a little more unusual, definitely not one of the common scorpions you would see around as far as we could tell from our research. We have reached out to a few other places to try and get more ID information, as we are not experts in Mexican scorpions."
Once they have identified the species of Mexican scorpion, and allowed her to settle into her new home, she will be on display.
In honour of her rescuer, the mom-to-be has been named "Gail."