A woman discovered the deadliest scorpion in South America running along the baseboards.
Paige Aitchison, 29, spotted a Brazilian yellowtail scorpion in her corridor in Wokingham. In its homeland, this species kills more people than all other venomous animals, including snakes and spiders, combined.
Paige at first thought it was a spider, but upon closer inspection she noticed its poisonous sting. Paige, a senior import-export coordinator, used a Tupperware box to collect the scorpion, sealing the box and leaving it on her desk while she considered her next steps.
“I came home from the gym Tuesday night and when I opened the door, something caught my eye on the baseboard,” she said.
“Our porch light wasn’t working, but there was a street light behind me, so it was all dark and there was some light shining on it. My first thought was it was a spider, because that’s what you do.” I expect to find it in your house.
“I FaceTimed a friend and asked her what she thought and she said she thought it was a Scorpio – which pretty much confirmed what I was thinking at the time! I hadn’t closed the door by this point because I wasn’t sure if he was going to leave or me.
“He started coming back into the house, so I took a Tupperware box and covered it. I took a piece of cardboard, put it underneath and turned it upside down. I placed the scorpion on the dining table and just looked at it in the box for a while.
“I thought, ‘What should I do with this?’ I can’t keep him in a box forever and I’m not going to kill him because it’s not his fault he’s in my house.”
After posting on her local Facebook page and a helpful neighbor offering a link to the National Reptile Conservation Center, Paige called for help.
Page says the center responded “immediately” and began requesting photos and answering questions to identify the scorpion’s species and quickly determined it was very dangerous.
The center sent a volunteer from Berkshire, who was able to travel to Page in about 90 minutes and retrieve the creature.
“I called them and they answered almost immediately,” she said. “I spoke to one woman first, and then Chris, one of the owners, came on the phone.
“He asked if it was in a sealed box and I said yes.” He said it was good – he told me not to go near the box, not to touch it, and not to open the box.
“He said that if he was right about the species, they were extremely poisonous and if I got stung, I would die. They sent a guy named Graham from the Berkshire Reptile Center.
“It was probably an hour or so between me calling them and collecting the money – it was extremely efficient. It was really nerve-wracking to have something like that on my desk for that hour.
“Even though I knew it was in a sealed box and couldn’t be taken out, there was still something on the table that could have killed me. What could have happened? All this began to be realized. As much as Graham thinks he saved the scorpion, I think he saved me!”
The scorpion stayed with volunteer Graham for several days and was then transferred to the National Reptile Conservation Center sanctuary where he will live out his days.
Paige says the team believes the scorpion may have caught the package sent to her, but says they have no way of knowing for sure.
“One of the questions Chris asked was if I had any packages delivered lately,” she said. “I didn’t say anything that day, but a few days before I had a date.
“Their theory is that many of them come in parcels from Shein and Temu, but this scorpion he believes is of Brazilian origin, so we are not sure how exactly this scorpion got here.
“Most of them are found inside packages, but this one was a little different because it was found in my hallway.
“People should be careful when opening packages and look before they open them; if these creatures come in packages, you could be putting yourself in danger.”