Colony of Scorpions Eating Winged Termites

[Bibhav Behera]

I had witnessed this behaviour on June 20th around 6 AM in the morning at Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Orissa at a place called Chaurasimal.

This was just after the first rains and there were winged termites coming from within the ground from various places.

But what struck us was that in a small area of around 6'x6' there were close to 25 scorpions catching the winged termites with around 5-6 caught by each. Some even had upto 8-9 in both claws (included). They would then go down holes in the soil and stock them. They would then come back for more.

I had never seen so many scorpions in one place leave aside catching prey like this in such a large scale. We saw the phenomenon for close to an hour or so.
Sharing a few images to show how it looked. Unfortunately I had left my wide angle lens back at the camp. Lesson learnt.

All images shot with 1000D + 300 f/4 @ f/4, ISO 400

PS: Can someone help identify the exact species of the scorpions seen here?