Venomous scorpions invade urban Brazil

Move over, Australia: in the internet pantheon of unpleasant wildlife, Brazil has one up on you: cities infested with swarms of venomous scorpions.

Sio Paulo is a dense city, with scarce green space and little to no animal life - no squirrels, no raccoons, not even a lot of birds. So I was astonished when, in January, I learned that scorpions had infested my neighborhood.

It turns out, people across the city and Sio Paulo state were having the same problem with these dangerous, venomous bugs. Statewide, scorpion stings have increased threefold over the last two decades.