Scientific Name: Typopeltis crucifer
Chinese Name: 台灣鞭蠍 (Taiwan Bianxie), 醋酸蟲 (Cu Suan Chong)
Chinese Meaning: "Taiwan Whip Scorpion", "Acid Bug"
Date: October 19, 2009
Location: Shiyuan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City
Coordinates: 24° 59' 24.13" N, 121° 32' 58.34" E
I spot these guys running around in the alley every once in awhile. They're pretty scary looking - the body's about the size of a man's thumb, and they can run like heck. However, whip scorpions aren't dangerous to people, unlike true scorpions, which don't live in Taiwan. Whip scorpions do have a defense weapon though - when cornered, they're able to spray acid out their back end. For a human, this might just irritate your skin a little bit, but if an animal gets it in its eye, it could hurt a lot. This acid-spraying is what earns the creature its Chinese nickname, "Acid Bug", and also its alternative English name, "Vinegarroon".
Date: November 26, 2009
Location: Shiyuan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City
Coordinates: 24° 59' 24.13" N, 121° 32' 58.34" E
Despite apparently being pretty common, it's a little bit hard to find a lot of information about whip scorpions in Taiwan. The website I usually go to for complete listings of species doesn't mention the whip scorpion group at all. But I was able to find some blogs and other sites in Chinese which allowed me to identify the species, though even they claimed that little research has been done on these creatures in Taiwan since the first half of the 20th Century.
Whip scorpions are not insects, but arachnids, like spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks. There are around 100 species of whip scorpions worldwide, but it seems that there is only one species known to exist in Taiwan. Although the websites I found called this species the "Taiwan Whip Scorpion", it is also found in parts of Japan. In the Western world, it is known mainly as an exotic pet.
