Welcome, Phil.

I would like to welcome a new member of our...household.  I can't quite bring myself to welcome Phil to the family exactly but I'm agreeing to let him reside here and do my best to care for his needs.  Phil is some type of small brown scorpion brought to us from the deserts of Utah by our adventurous and rather frontiersy next door neighbor.  He was pretty tickled to be presenting Stomper with this exotic new pet and Stomper is  beside himself with excitement.  He is, after all, the kid who loves all things carnivorous, especially if they have claws or pincers or a poisonous aspect to their predatory physiques.  I'm not entirely sure how Phil came by his name - it certainly doesn't carry the same ferocity as T-Rex, our leopard gecko.  Speaking of good old T-Rex, he is still around, approaching his 5th anniversary with our family.  I am quite fond of our little lizard I can't quite tell you why T-Rex feels so much more like a pet than Phil.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I feel completely comfortable holding T-Rex whereas with Phil there is a strict do-not-open-this-enclosure-under-any-circumstances rule.  Yeah, that poisonous stinger aspect has got to be it.  Hopefully Phil leads a long and happy life eating crickets and digging under sticks.

Not a very good picture - he's so small it's hard to get a close up picture of him, but here is Phil the Scorpion: