Unveiling the role of chitin arrangement and inorganic additives in scorpions hard parts

For predating and defence, scorpions largely rely on their sharp stingers to inject venom, subjecting these stingers to extreme mechanical loads. In contrast to other arthropods, e.g. crustaceans, who employ mineral for cuticle hardening, spiders and scorpions fabricate hard and sharp parts entirely without mineral. Alternatively, they often use locally elevated levels of metal ions such as Zn and Mn, as they are also found in scorpion stingers. A recent experiment at BM05, however, showed strong variations of metal ion type and distribution, both between species and in different locations of the stinger, suggesting substantial variation of strategies or even metal ion functionalites different from just mechanics. In this inhouse beamtime we would like to do XRF and XRD measurements on section of the chelicerae and chelae, which are other hard parts in the scorpions, to investigate if they use the same strategy in the aforementioned hard parts as they do in their stingers.