• What law applies
• Workplace obligations
  • Employers
  • Workers
  • Workplace amenities and first aid
  • Workplace incidents
  • Training
  • Personal protective equipment
• Plant, machinery and equipment
  • Defining rural plant, machinery and equipment
  • Operating plant, machinery and equipment safely
  • Plant associated risks
• Rural chemicals
  • Using chemicals
  • Storing chemicals
  • Disposing of chemicals and containers
  • Transporting chemicals and dangerous goods
  • Using pesticides
  • Record keeping
  • Rural chemicals guide (PDF, 693 kb)
• Orchard operations
  • Tractors
  • Harvest
• Animal hazards
  • General information
  • Horse handling
  • Cattle handling
  • Sheep handling
  • Shearing
  • Pig handling
  • Diseases from animals
  • Dangerous snakes
  • Distinctive spiders
  • Scorpions and centipedes
• Rural Codes of Practice

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Scorpions and centipedes

Large brown scorpions are common in gardens and forests throughout eastern Queensland and found under logs and rocks and in shallow burrows in earth banks. The tail sting is not known to be dangerous and the scorpion usually retreats rather than fights.

Large golden scorpions include some of the biggest scorpions in Queensland and are common and west of the Great Dividing Range. The sting is not known to be dangerous.

Common garden centipedes may reach 15cm and are found throughout northern Australia. They live in logs and spaces formed between rubbish and even newspapers. They move rapidly and bite with two powerful 'jaws' below the head. The bite causes severe pain which may last several days but no deaths have been recorded from the bite.

Ways to avoid being bitten include:

• Do not put hands, feet or head into or near a spider's web or a spider may drop or rush out and bite.
• Do not put hands, feet or head into gloves, helmets or boots without checking.
• Fold clothes inside out before taking them inside.
• Do not provoke, poke or blow on spiders or they will jump and bite.
• Do not crush anything you feel walking on you. Get somebody to knock it off. Spider juices are often toxic or bacterially dangerous.
• Strip beds and remake before going to sleep.
• Ensure bed clothing of babies or infants does not hang on to the bedroom floor.