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When the tiny, terrified creature scuttled into the safety of its hiding place just barely ahead of the teeth of its snuffling and now enraged predator, it whirled in place for a long moment with the bulbous finial of its tail fully prepared for battle, the needle tip curved into striking position above its own rigid back, venom at the ready. And for several minutes the furry hunter outside the inverted bowl shape of this shadowy little cave dug furiously, whining in its irritation at the loss of such a tasty morsel; then it suddenly sped off into the night in search of something easier to catch and thereby staving off its hunger for another day. Some time passed in total stillness before the primitive brain in this well-armed member of the insect family, a relative to the spider, eased the tension of its primary armament and allowed the long, segmented tail to gradually relax its taut curve enough that it lay straight behind it on the floor of fine sand. It would not leave the security of its den again the entire night although it had not eaten this day. Fear would keep it where it was for many hours. By the next night it would venture cautiously forth again from one or the other of the two semi-circular openings in the northern wall of its little cave. But until then, the top of a half-buried human skull newly revealed by flash flooding in the normally dry stream bed would shelter and protect one of the desert's own, the creature despised by man, called scorpion. |