Pics: Scorpions....eaten as a delicacy and used as a bizarre beauty craze

It's the latest and most bizarre beauty craze sweeping Latin America - women gluing dead scorpions to their finger nails. The new manicure style sees women attach scorpions to their nails with a venom so deadly it kills victims in 15 minutes, all in the name of fashion.
‘It started out as a sick joke’, beauty parlour owner Rocío Vidales, who is pioneering the bizarre beauty treatment told MailOnline. 'We’ve had women come here from across North America specifically to have baby scorpions fitted to their nails.'
The trend started in September when Lupita Garcia, a scorpion artisan and enthusiast, suggested to the staff at Rocío’s nail parlor in Durango, Mexico, to have a Scorpion-themed manicure. The tiny scorpions are stuck onto women’s nails, despite being less than a week old, are still highly venomous. The insects are killed with bug spray before they go near the manicurist’s table, and while the stingers are left on, Rocío says she never touches the animals with her hands. Dr Julio Cesar Ramirez, who has worked in hospitals for 30 years, said: 'The scorpions remain venomous after they have died.' 
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Lupita’s passion for the deadly insects, the second most venomous scorpion in Mexico, has survived three separate trips to the emergency room.
‘I’ve been stung enough to know that the pain of the venom is very intense’, she said, recounting her experiences. ‘It gives you a terrible headache, your nose begins to bleed, your tongue goes numb and your throat feels like it’s lined with fur.
Although they grow to just 4cm in length, the venom from Centruroides Suffusus can kill an adult human in 15 to 20 minutes. More than a thousand people were killed in Durango state in northern Mexico by the deadly insects last year. Fatalities have been reduced significantly by the anti-venom units installed in every hospital, but it’s the people in rural areas who can’t get to a hospital quickly enough that tend to die,' Lupita said. The scorpion manicure involves sticking the dead insect to the nail before encasing it in liquid acrylic, which is subsequently polished. Dead scorpions, preserved in alcohol, are available for £2 each in the local market, fished out of jars containing more than 1,000 insects.
As a delicacy, scorpions are even sold in tacos to eat at the city centre’s Raíces restaurant. The scorpions served in Sergio’s tacos are soaked in surgical alcohol for 24 hours before they go near the kitchen, a process which the owner claims neutralizes the asphyxiating venom.

‘We make sure they completely safe to eat before we cook them’, he said, ‘that’s why we leave the stinger on, it gives the insect that extra bite on your tongue when you bite into it’.
Dr Ramirez added: ‘The alcohol destroys the functionality of the venom-producing organ. They’re perfectly safe to eat, although still not particularly delicious’.
Sergio Ávila, the scorpion taco’s inventor, added: ‘I used to play with the scorpions on the mountainsides as a kid.
‘Here we soak them in a liquid which neutralizes their venom before frying them and serving them up, stinger and all.'
People always ask me what they tastes like,' said the self-styled ‘Scorpion King’ as he picked a wriggling insect out of a bucket containing more than a thousand and eats it. 'The answer is that it only tastes of scorpion, there’s nothing to compare it to.'

Lupita, who says her alternative manicures have helped to attract more business to her stall, added: ‘We sell live scorpions to people as pets, but we always cut off the stinger.
‘The idea is to improve the image of these insects, not to sell people deadly weapons.'