A breeding laboratory in southeastern Türkiye's Şanlıurfa province has found a very unique material to sell, a material that sells for millions by the liter: scorpion venom. Thousands of scorpions, housed in transparent plastic boxes, line the walls of the laboratory, waiting for personnel to milk their expensive venom used to produce medicine.
Using a pair of tweezers and tongs, lab employees remove the scorpions from the boxes and wait as they squeeze a tiny drop of venom from their needles into a receptacle. The venom is then frozen and turned into powder before it is sold.
A single scorpion produces about 2 milligrams of venom, and the lab is able to obtain about 2 grams of venom daily, said Metin Örenler, the owner of the scorpion farm.
Örenler's farm, which opened in 2020, now has around 20,000 scorpions of the Androctonus Turkiyensis species, which was identified as a distinct type in an article published in a scorpiology journal in 2021.
"We both breed the scorpions themselves and also milk them," Örenler said. "We freeze the venom that we obtain as a result of the milking we do, then we turn it into powder and sell them to Europe."
The venom, which is exported to France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland, is used to produce cosmetics, painkillers and antibiotics, Örenler said, adding that one liter of the venom is worth $10 million.
