A deathstalker named Scorpio lives in an abandoned house in Addis Ababa. Usually deathstalkers live in burrows in the desert but this one found out about the abandoned house. It is a male. Fortunately, he is the only deathstalker in the house filled with thousands of insects. His friends and family live outside in the desert but, luckily, they don’t know about the house.

Deathstalkers are nocturnal. Scorpio sleeps during the day and comes out at night. He sleeps in gaps under pillars, holes in walls, where other insects can’t find him. Sometimes he gets bored of living in the same house, so he goes outside for a little vacation. During his holiday out in the desert, he sets his camp usually around 20 cm under a rock. Sometimes when he is not in the mood of doing work, he takes over, modifies and claims other animals’ burrows. Because, why not?

Unfortunately, scorpio has a flat body, unlike all his thicc insect friends. But he is not that mad about his body because all the deathstalkers have flat bodies. Scorpio is still way better looking than his friends though because he has food in abundance. His flat body helps him to easily hide under rocks, bark or other small cracks. Scorpio is big and muscular. Most of his friends are around 3.5 to 4.5 inches big. But because of all the juicy insects he eats, Scorpio is 5 inches in length, which is very big compared to other deathstalkers. Most deathstalkers’ color ranges from a very pale yellow to a much richer/deeper greenish yellow. Scorpio is dark yellow in color which makes camouflaging in the desert very easy for him. Camouflaging helps him in hunting and saving himself from his predators.

Imagine being a worker ant, repeating the same mundane task everyday for the good of your colony. You have nothing special about you. You're just another cog in the machine. Your only purpose is to live to work for the purpose of survival, growth, reproduction. You go out with the goal of gathering food and supplies under the blaring Lone Star State sun, when all of sudden it's over. You are dead. You didn't, or even couldn't, see it coming. You were eaten, of course. Just another speck in the food chain, and another bug in the stomach of the Texas-horned lizard. It was survival of the fittest. Possibly the smartest. And the Texas-horned lizard embodies that.You were not stalked. You simply walked into the mouth of a lizard in wait. The lizard is many things, but easily detectable it isn’t. It takes the casual approach-- lay down motionless, wait and wait some more, allowing predators to pass it by. Maybe even prey, but it wouldn't be long before it disappears. The animal itself is built for camouflage, blending in with its surroundings with the texture of a rock and the color of the soil. Grey, brown, yellow. It could change the color of itself to light to dark and back again. One of the many strengths of the lizard is how it goes about its camouflage. It will often pretend to be a rock, tucking in its arms and legs and hunching over to heighten the resemblance. If a predator can see through this, it will run and try to establish invisibility once more by pretending to be a rock again, leaving the attacker confused. Although particularly risky, the lizard will flip on its back to present a lighter color to the predator, using it to blend in. Even the way their body is evolved to minimize the shadow they cast, so it wouldn't be as visible as a round bodied lizard would be. Although mostly depending on the coloration of itself to survive, the Texas-horned lizard has one more trick up its sleeve. A second face. The animal has a light sensing organ on top of its head to regulate body temperature, speculate the seasons and mating periods. The way it is positioned near the eye and brow ridge can make it appear like the front of the head is actually, the back of it, even further confusing predators. Interestingly enough, the type of predator chasing the lizard will determine the type of defense it uses. As the Texas-horned lizard can quickly distinguish the type of snake after it, it will use camouflage tactics like staying still against relatively slow moving rattlesnakes, and running away when the snake cannot pursue them. Imagine being a snake, starving and senseless only for the only bit of prey you could muster the strength to run after disappearing in front of your eyes. Just another speck in the food chain, and another successful day for the Texas-horned lizard.