Scorpions: the victims of undue shade. If you've ever wanted to impress a date with weird facts THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU. A handful of people on planet Earth have a PhD in scorpions and Dr. Lauren Esposito is one of them. She spills the beans on how venom works, what's up with the blacklight glow effect, how dangerous they *really* are, what all the movies get wrong, the best names for scorpions, where she's traveled to look under rocks, where a scorpion's butt is, if scorpions dance or make out (SPOILER: YES), what good mothers they are, how big they used to be millions of years ago and how -- technically speaking -- they are not poisonous. Also: how much does a gallon of venom cost? Oh, and why she started the visibility campaign 500 Queer Scientists. Get this one in your ears right away.

Follow Dr. Esposito at twitter.com/arachnologynerd or instagram.com/caribales and check out

Sponsor links: Calm.com/Ologies, KiwiCo.com/Ologies, LinkedIn.com/Ologies

This week's donation went to: www.Islandsseas.org

More links at alieward.com/ologies/scorpiology

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologies

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!

Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologies

Follow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWard

Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies