• themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    According to the police, one liter of medicine from scorpion venom could be worth $10 million, which is why it was prohibited to take these animal species out of the country.

    If that seems like a dramatic exaggeration of the value or quantity of venom you could get from scorpions. A quick google search shows you can get 2 mg of venom per scorpion, and it is indeed one of the most valuable liquids on earth. Assuming it’s roughly 1 mg per ml, 500 scorpions could make a liter, but professional scorpion farmers only manage to milk about 50 per day.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-scorpion-farmer-milks-arachnids-their-expensive-venom-2022-08-16/

    It kind of makes me wonder how quickly scorpions reproduce, and how many I can hide from my wife…

    • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
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      7 months ago

      Be careful it starts with just one scorpion and suddenly you are involved in a show about a deranged exotic animal fan that supports trump with an arch nemesis that fed their husband to a tiger.

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        GOD DAMN CAROL BASKINNNS

        but for real she like, probably didn’t kill her husband.

        • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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          7 months ago

          I assumed the dude was trafficking from somewhere in South America. He had a plane and liked to fly low because he didn’t have his paperwork up to date.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wonder if it 1L of pure venom worth $10M or 1L of medicine made from the pure venom. The processing might add to the cost per liter.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The cops aaid medicine made from the venom, but other sources said that the venom itself is valued at $10MM per liter. So I don’t know what to believe.

        Either way, you need a shit ton of scorpions to get enough, and you need to spend days milking them.

    • HikingVet
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      7 months ago

      Well, they have 3 -100 young and depending on the sub type. And I couldn’t find out how often they can breed but the low end is like 6 months.