Ongar Underground Station scorpions

The scorpion population at Ongar Underground Station was once featured in a report by the BBC back in the 1970's but this "wild" population of scorpions was later reported by The Independent to have been a hoax orchestrated by the station foreman "Fred" who deliberately released five scorpions bought from a local pet shop in Camden. The scorpions may have bred or one of the released specimens may have been a gravid female but some former employees at the Railway Station and some visitors and local residents claim the end result was a small population of more than a dozen scorpions that lived in the brickwork of the station for several years.





The Independent Newspaper article Sunday 9th July 1995

"At its peak in 1971, 750 passengers were making the return trip. But even then the track was hardly an economic proposition although the staff did their utmost to drum up business. In 1965, an Ongar station foreman bought five (harmless) European scorpions in a Camden pet shop and let them loose in his goods yard. This formed the basis of one of the few scorpion colonies in Britain, which became an attraction. The staff kept quiet about its real origins, and encouraged speculation that it arrived in a banana van in the 1860s."





Dean Sullivan, a former employee at Ongar Railway Station claimed on 'www.districtdavesforum.co.uk' that when David Attenborough arrived with a film crew to record the Ongar Railway scorpion population they were unable to find any specimens. This former employee also claims that the film crew brought their own captive-bred scorpions which they filmed and then claimed were found living wild at the Ongar Railway Station. See report here.





Wikipedia.org - Ongar Railway Station

"The sand drag at the very end of the rails — intended to help slow trains that overshot the stopping mark — was said to be home to a breed of harmless scorpion and featured in a 1979 episode of the BBC's Wildlife On One. They had been released there by a station foreman who was a keeper of exotic pets."







