No need to fear the Australian scorpion

This one (pictured), is most likely a wood scorpion. It was dug up in a garden at Mt Helen.

The size of this species varies between individuals, with the largest reaching 40mm, and the smallest only about 25mm. About half that length is tail.

It is mostly found in ground litter in forests, and also in gardens. It lives in shallow temporary burrows in the ground, or sometimes in deeper burrows, which it uses for a longer time. Much of summer is spent underground where moisture levels are slightly higher.

At times, it is found in cracks of wood, and under the bark of trees. It is widespread and moderately common in most of Victoria, but not in the dry north-west.

The one pictured is a rather dark specimen; others can be browner and mottled.

The photo shows a stout, well-fed specimen, with six prominent armour-like plates on its back.

Wood scorpions feed at night on small insects and similar creatures, mostly less than 10 millimetres long.

A sting by this small scorpion may result in a painful burning pain for a few hours, but usually nothing more.

I was once stung on a finger while handling firewood, and felt the pain proceeding up my arm to the shoulder over the period of 30 to 40 minutes. The sensation ceased at the top of the arm, and there were no further effects.

A 2003 book states that there have been no confirmed cases of deaths from any of the 100 or more scorpion species in Australia. They are not aggressive creatures.

The scorpions with deadly stings occur overseas.

One of the common waterhens at Lake Wendouree is the dusky moorhen. At this time of the year, it is easy to see how its name arose - the young birds, in particular, are very sombrely-plumaged in nondescript dark olive-brown. Their bills and legs are the same dark shade.

Other Australian birds share the dusky name: there is a woodswallow, a honeyeater, a robin, a warbler (gerygone) and a grasswren. The moorhen is the most-uniformly dark of these. Its plumage is broken only by the white sides underneath its tail, with occasional individuals having a few fine white streaks on their sides.

In the days of early European settlement, the dusky moorhen was sometimes known as the sombre gallinule, which was a literary translation of its scientific name.

There is a European moorhen, not much less "dusky" or sombre than ours.

I found this Jurassic moth - a monster! Much longer than my thumb. P.D., Windermere.

This is a rain moth or Abantiades atripalpis. It belongs to the family of swift moths and ghost moths. The photo shows it is longer than the length across your wrist. It is a female, which has a wingspan of 20 or more centimetres. Males are smaller.

Your specimen is rather early, because it usually appears with the autumn rains. Many examples have a couple of narrow white lengthwise stripes, but these are not prominent on your specimen.

The cases of its large white caterpillars ("bardee grubs") are sometimes found on the ground when the moths emerge. The caterpillars resemble witchetty grubs.

They feed on roots of eucalypts. The adults have a lifespan of only a few days, and apparently do not feed, with mating being their main concern.