“Where do scorpions live?” is often searched together with “how do scorpions get into the house?” The answers to both start from the same point: scorpions are animals that wait in a shelter during the day and become active at night, and what that shelter is varies greatly from species to species. This article focuses not on measures inside the home but on the substrates scorpions live on in nature; for measures at home and in the garden, see our article on protection from scorpions.
What makes a suitable habitat for a scorpion?
Whether a scorpion stays in a place depends on three needs: a dark shelter to hide in during the day, a cool and humid setting that protects it from drying out, and insects to feed on nearby. A rocky slope can meet these three needs, and so can a sandy floor or the underside of a stone. The effect of humidity and temperature was covered in our article on water needs, and the distribution of the species in Türkiye in our article on scorpion species living in Türkiye.
Five classic habitat types
For decades, scorpion biologists have grouped scorpions by the substrate they are found on. The five widely accepted types are as follows:
| Type | Where it lives | Notable feature |
|---|---|---|
| Rock dwellers (lithophilous) | Rock surfaces and crevices | Body flattened from back to belly; especially pronounced in crevice dwellers |
| Sand dwellers (psammophilous) | Loose sand and dunes | Long bristles and claws on the feet; a streamlined tail suited to digging in sand |
| Hard-soil burrowers (pelophilous) | Burrows dug in hard ground | Large, robust pincers, thought to help with digging |
| Plant and bark dwellers (corticolous) | Tree bark, vegetation | Some elongation of the pincers and legs |
| Ground-surface wanderers (lapidicolous) | On the surface and under stones | The least specialised group |
This grouping was tested in a 2022 study by Coelho and colleagues published in BMC Ecology and Evolution. The researchers compared habitat data and body measurements for 61 species from 14 families, and when they looked without sorting the species into groups beforehand, four habitat groups emerged: rock, sand, hard soil and plants. These groups also differed significantly from one another in body structure. The general trend was this: in sandy habitats the walking legs are longer and the pincers more slender, while in rocky habitats the proportions are the reverse.
Why is body structure related to habitat?
The same study notes that scorpions are particularly well suited to this kind of research because the parts of their body take on different jobs: catching and handling prey is the job of the pincers, defence usually involves the sting, and movement is the job of the legs. A difference in body measurements can therefore be linked more easily to the needs of a specific function. Researchers call groups of animals that adapt to the same substrate and share similar body features “ecomorphs”; in scorpions, ecomorphs have been defined by substrate for more than half a century. For the names and functions of the body parts, see our article on scorpion body structure.
Specialist species and flexible species
According to the same source, sand and rock dwellers are very specifically adapted to their substrate; their body structure suits it so closely that they are not fit to live on other substrates. The hard-soil, bark and ground-surface groups, on the other hand, include species that are more flexible about substrate. This is why, in the same region, different species can be met in different micro-habitats, from under a stone to a sandy floor.
Burrow or shelter?
Not every scorpion digs a burrow. The groups living in hard soil and sand are diggers; surface-dwelling groups generally make do with ready-made shelters such as the underside of a stone. Piles of stones, wood and rubble around a house also offer a similar shelter to species living close to the surface; how to arrange such piles is explained in the protection article. For how shelter use changes with the seasons, see how scorpions spend the winter.
Seeing scorpions at night
The best-known way to find scorpions, which do not leave their shelters by day, is to scan at night with ultraviolet light. The basis of this method is explained in our article on why scorpions glow under UV light. Observing scorpions in nature is not the same as catching them; the legal status of catching them is a separate matter.
