Scorpion Suicide: Experiments and Anecdotes in Colonial England (and beyond)

I examine conflicting accounts of “scorpion suicide” to explore the entanglement of colonialism, anecdotes, and nascent scientific journals in the late 1800s. The tale of the scorpion surrounded by fire choosing to turn its sting on itself is one of the most striking images of animal self-destruction. While the experimental tradition on scorpion suicide is almost 300 years old, dating back to work by the French natural philosopher Maupertuis in 1731, the British were relative latecomers. They had a distinct dearth of scorpions until encountering them in colonial holdings like South Africa and India. I show how venues for the international circulation of animal anecdotes and at-home experiments like Nature magazine, mixed with British colonial access to scorpions, mixed with concerns about the evolutionary implications of a self-destructive instinct, led to vigorous debate over the reality of scorpion suicide in the 1870s and 1880s. Ultimately, I argue, it was not just the grisly experimental evidence, but also shifting epistemic standards in scientific journals and a denial of the implicit epistemic authority granted to the reports of explorers and colonialists in exotic places that led to the British scientific community turning against scorpion suicide. However, despite this century-old scientific conclusion, the present day persistence of the tale of scorpion suicide, on Youtube and Reddit, on yahoo answers and pet shop owners forums, and even in non-biology academic papers, reminds of us the complex nature of not just the development, but also the distribution, of scientific findings.