NEW RESEARCH WORK ON STINGER DIVERSITY IN SCORPIONS FEATURED ON THE COVER OF JOURNAL OF ANATOMY

The study on stinger diversity, carried out by an international team which includes CIBIO-InBIO researcher Arie van der Meijden has made the cover of the April issue of Journal of Anatomy.

The work developed by the researchers aimed to explore the diversity of telson shapes, which is used as a stinger for venom injection in scorpions, through the analysis of morphological features, such as curvature and tip angle, as well as by testing stingers under load using finite element analysis (FEA).

The researchers have found that species that are more venomous have long aculei (stinger barbs), with a larger radius of curvature and that telsons with shorter and thicker aculeus shapes tend to show stress concentrations only at the tip.
Overall this study shows that scorpion stingers may be biomechanically optimized, indicating different usage of the stinger in different species widening the knowledge on these fascinating creatures.

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