The scorpions go into terminator mode and strengthen their weapons with steel

One theory floated by the group is that zinc and manganese are low, so the scorpions can strengthen the hard parts of the sting instead of spreading the metal through their entire exoskeleton.

Going deeper into what seems to be a flaw in a well-constructed sting is one thing Campbell wants to look into in the future. But the team thinks there is more to learn.

“We were using samples from museums, and we were only taking one of each species,” Campbell said.

The disadvantage of this method is that the study did not find differences in the methods of metal supplementation between different people of the same race. This variation, Campbell agreed, may be important in scorpions, which often have strong sexual dimorphism—females are much larger than males.

Another aspect that the study did not address is whether the change in metal changes the lives of the scorpions. Scorpions go through several molts, shedding their exoskeletons to grow and transform into a new stage, or instar. “There was a study that showed in the first instar, when the scorpion is born, there are no extra metals,” Campbell said. “The iron begins to come to the sting with the second star.”

The problem with answering questions like this, Campbell thinks, is that scorpions are notoriously difficult to learn. They are nocturnal, often live in deserts, and burrow underground.

“We don’t know 100 percent of what they do,” Campbell said. “It would be good to correlate what we see in the wild, how it interacts with their environment, with what we find in their bones in the lab. That would be a big, big study to try.”

The team’s study on metals in scorpions is published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2025.0523