Blue scorpion

thank you Scott, thank you valggavmiko

My mistake, thanks.

Hi Scott! I was referring to your comment "Heterometrus spinifer or Heterometrus longimanus", not your suggestion. So I assumed you were implying by your comment that it would be either spinifer of longimanus. I do agree with your ID of Heterometrus sp. whole-heartedly! I hope that clears up my previous comment!

Thanks valgaavmiko. The heart of a species suggestion is the latin binomial. Scientific name always trumps common name. Please note that I purposefully suggested "Heterometrus sp." which means one of a species of the genus Heterometrus. I did not stipulate "spinifer" nor any other species. But I did select a suggestion reference that showed a Palawan distribution (one of the 3 species you mention) to illustrate the genus. If indeed the common names I suggested refer only to H. spinifer and spinifer does not reach Palawan Island, then perhaps I erred. But again common names are problematic, and there is no one authority on common names -- that's why there are scientific names. I actually picked the common name from http://www.dutchpickle.com/philippines/p... knowing full well it was not an authoritative site but used or a common name, not a scientific name. Here is our Project Noah blog piece on the importance of scientific species names http://blog.projectnoah.org/post/2870249... Cheers

It can't be spinifer. There are three Heterometrus found in the Philippines: longimanus, cyaneus, and petersii. I don't know why people insist it is native to the PH. Is it probably a mis-ID from people? Scott if you have an article on Heterometrus that says it's native to PH, please let me know. My key clearly says it isn't found in there. I can tell you it probably isn't petersii because the chela look lobed and not rounded. Unfortunately the couplet that lets me distinguish between cyaneus and longimanus makes me look at sexual dimorphism and given that you only have one individual here, my problem is obvious.

Heterometrus spinifer or Heterometrus longimanus