Deathstalker (Deathstalker scorpion) is one of the most dangerous scorpion species. While their sting is not enough to kill a healthy adult, it can be fatal for children and the elderly, and it is believed to be about 100 times more painful than a bee sting.
The Most Expensive Liquid on Earth
The venom from a Deathstalker scorpion can kill humans, but at the same time, it can also bring enormous sums of money. Priced at $39 million (approximately 907 billion VND) per gallon (1 gallon = 3.78 liters), Deathstalker venom is the most expensive liquid in the world.
Even if you have enough money, you still can’t buy a full gallon of scorpion venom. Instead, you can only purchase an extremely small amount. $130 (3 million VND) is what you would need to spend to acquire a drop of venom smaller than a grain of sugar.
Deathstalker venom is the most expensive liquid in the world.
Why is Deathstalker Venom So Expensive?
Extracting scorpion venom is extremely difficult. Venom must be manually extracted from each scorpion individually. A single scorpion can only produce a maximum of 2 milligrams per extraction.
Let’s do some math; if you had one scorpion, you would need to extract venom 2.64 million times to fill a gallon. The extractor also faces the risk of being stung. Although a sting is not lethal to a healthy person, it is certainly very painful.
At the tip of the scorpion’s tail is a venom gland, and while all scorpions have venom, only a few species possess venom that is truly lethal.
A study conducted earlier this year discovered that smaller scorpion species tend to have more dangerous venom. For example, the South African thick-tailed scorpion has venom that is ten times stronger than that of the Israeli golden scorpion.
In fact, “scorpions must significantly increase their metabolism to produce venom. For them, creating venom is akin to a human running a marathon,” said evolutionary biologist Dr. Arie van Der Meijden from the CIBIO-InBIO Institute in Portugal to IFLScience.
“We conducted a study a few years ago where we simply poked the scorpion and made it angry to inject venom into a vial. They tend to use about 3 to 5 percent of their venom for each sting, meaning they can sting multiple times.”
Another reason for the high cost of scorpion venom is its application in medicine. Within the deadly venom of scorpions are numerous components that assist in the development of groundbreaking medications.
For instance, chlorotoxin found in scorpion venom can bind to certain cancer cells in the brain and spine, thus helping to identify the size and specific location of tumors.
Researchers are also using scorpions to eliminate malaria in mosquitoes. Kaliotoxin in scorpion venom is being tested for treating bone diseases in mice. Scientists hope it will have similar effects in humans.
The more scientists study scorpion venom, the more applications they discover. This means that the demand for scorpion venom will continue to rise. Consequently, they are trying to find faster methods of venom extraction.
In 2017, a group of Moroccan scientists invented a remote-controlled venom extractor that can capture scorpion venom four times faster than humans. They hope this machine will be available on the market in the coming years, making the venom extraction process quicker and safer.
Interestingly, there is a liquid even more expensive than Deathstalker venom: stallion semen. This comes from the world’s most expensive stallion named Galileo. According to Business Insider, a gallon of this horse’s semen can cost up to $49 million and is much easier to obtain than scorpion venom.
North Africa, along with the Middle East, India, Mexico, and parts of South America, is home to about 50 scorpion species that pose a potential threat to human life. While everyone understands that the venom of different species will vary in danger levels, what is perhaps less known is that the quality of the venom also changes with the number of stings.
Scorpion Predators
The grasshopper mouse species can attack and eat scorpions without being affected by the scorpion’s potent venom.
Grasshopper mouse.
Southern grasshopper mice (Onychomys torridus) are carnivorous rodents living in deserts, commonly found in the U.S. and Mexico. According to scientists, this mouse species has evolved the ability to block paralyzing signals from scorpion venom to the brain, preventing the effects of the venom, thus they do not feel pain when exposed to scorpion venom.
Meanwhile, in the southwestern United States, each night, the pallid bat spreads across the sky to hunt the Arizona scorpion, known for its deadly venom, which becomes an easy target for the pallid bat.
Scientists have recorded the scorpion-hunting behavior of pallid bats using high-definition cameras. When the bats swoop down to attack, they do not even avoid the scorpion’s counterattack.
Pallid bats are not afraid of scorpions’ venom, the most famous in America.
“The research results show that pallid bats were stung multiple times throughout their hunt but seemed to be unharmed,” quoted scientists in PLOS One.
Scientists also attempted to inject venom directly into pallid bats, but this clearly showed no effect. Analyzing the DNA samples of the pallid bats, researchers found mutations in areas where the bats frequently encounter venom. This may be an adaptive change over a long period.
Venomics: An Emerging Science
The preference for scorpion venom in particular and venomous species in general is part of a growing trend in a scientific field known as Venomics. This field studies the proteins found in venoms. The goal is to search for pharmacologically active molecules that can be developed into medicines for humans.
“Going back a century, we thought that all venoms contained only three or four components. But now, we know that a single type of venom can contain thousands of compounds”, said Leslie V. Boyer, a professor of pathology at the University of Arizona.
“There is an entire pharmacopeia in the venom of these animals waiting to be discovered.”
Researchers like Boyer are likened to modern-day alchemists. Their daily task is to extract every microliter of venom from the fangs and stingers of the planet’s most dangerous creatures. If they’re lucky, scientists may uncover unique pharmacologically active molecules within.
