Deadly scorpion hid in couple's bag returning from Mexico honeymoon

A couple returned from their honeymoon, started unpacking their clothes and discovered a potentially deadly scorpion had hitched a ride in their dirty washing.

Oliver Lane said at first it didn’t move when it landed on the floor of their home in Bishopston in Bristol as they were unpacking from the holiday of a lifetime to Mexico, and he thought it was a bit of fluff so went to pick it up, before realising the little critter had big pincers and a tail that started rearing up.

He quickly ran to get a glass to put over the creature to contain it and then came to the realisation that if the small scorpion had stowed away in their backpacks, were there others lurking in the big bag of washing they brought back from their fortnight’s trip?

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Oliver said he and his new wife Alex then tentatively and carefully went through each item in their washing bag. “It was quite a scene. Alex was standing on the bed armed with the vacuum cleaner, while I gingerly pulled out each item of clothing and shook it. After the initial shock of realising that a scorpion had come back with us in our bag, we were thinking ‘do they travel in groups? Is that a baby one and its mum is in the next item of clothing to come out of the bag?’”

Only once they had reassured themselves that their stowaway had travelled alone, and once the washing machine was quickly pressed into use, they could relax.

The couple got married in Glastonbury and then set off for a honeymoon in Mexico, spending time in Mexico City first before travelling to the far south of Mexico to Oaxaca. “It was an amazing trip. One of the places we stayed in was this little hotel and it was surrounded by the jungle, so we think that’s where the scorpion came from,” explained Oliver.

“It was pretty small and we thought it would be harmless, but we got in touch with a friend who’s a biologist on face time, and he took one look at it and said ‘ah it’s the small ones that are the ones you’ve got to look out for, they are the most deadly’,” added Oliver.

In the end, they took the decision to humanely destroy the critter. “I was worried that we’d get in trouble for bringing an alien species back to this country and I didn’t know what else to do - I wasn’t exactly going to release it onto Horfield Common,” he said.

Without a confirmed identification, it’s difficult to know just how deadly the scorpion that found itself in Bishopston was. There are around 280 different species of scorpions in Mexico, of many colours and sizes, including several species of little black ones whose stings are no worse than bee stings, while there are also little black ones whose stings regularly kill people in Mexico.

The experience hasn’t put the couple off returning to Mexico, but Oliver said they would be more careful packing their suitcase for the return trip.

“It was an amazing country, full of life, colour and friendliness - we’d definitely go back,” he added.