Are Arizona bark scorpions deadly?

How many people have died from bark scorpion stings?

Very few. Wikipedia's summary of Arizona records, drawing on state and university sources, cites two confirmed deaths in Arizona since 1968.^[1] The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and UArizona Extension both describe the sting as potentially life-threatening yet rarely fatal, especially since the antivenom Anascorp became available in 2011.^[5][6][7] This site does not publish a national death count because the national poison-data reports that would contain it were not retrievable for verification; that gap is noted honestly rather than filled with a guess.

How many stings happen?

A lot more than the fatality numbers suggest. US poison centers logged 185,402 scorpion exposures from 2005 to 2015, and Arizona accounted for 68.2% of them; 97.8% happened at home and 90.1% were managed without a hospital visit.^[2] Population-adjusted rates in Phoenix (up to 677 per 100,000) and Tucson (584 per 100,000) are the highest in the country.^[8]

Even those figures undercount. A 2025 study in Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases matched hospital discharge records against poison-center records for Maricopa County, 2017 through 2021. The two systems together recorded 45,179 envenomations; the capture-recapture estimate of the true total was 178,625, roughly four times higher.^[9] That is about 36,000 stings a year in one county.

Who is actually at risk?

Children under 10 have the highest rates of systemic effects, hospitalization, and ICU admission in Arizona and Nevada data.^[2] Adults over 70 are the other high-risk group.^[3] In healthy adults, a bark scorpion sting is an intensely painful but almost always self-limited event.^[4] Severe (grade III and IV) envenomation is the exception, and it is treatable.^[10][11]

Why are deaths so rare if the venom is potent?

Three reasons. The dose is small: a bark scorpion injects a fraction of a milligram. Medical care is close: Arizona's poison centers and emergency departments see these stings constantly and follow a well-established grading and treatment protocol.^[10] And since 2011 an FDA-approved antivenom reverses neurotoxic signs within hours in the great majority of treated children.^[11][7] Before the antivenom, severe pediatric cases were managed with days of intensive sedation, which carried its own risks.^[11]

How does it compare with other venomous Arizona animals?

Rattlesnake bites are far less common but far more likely to cause lasting tissue damage or death; scorpion stings are far more common and almost never fatal.^[12] Bee stings kill more Americans each year than scorpions do, through allergic reactions, which bark scorpion venom does not typically provoke.^[4]

The bottom line

Treat every sting seriously, call Poison Help, and go to the emergency department for systemic signs or for any sting in a small child or frail adult. Do not treat the animal as a death sentence, because the data say it is not one.^[2][1]