Now we come back to another early monster from the first game, the basic giant scorpion, notable for having both very high physical attack and very high defense! Unlike many media scorpions, its anatomical layout possesses the scientifically accurate eight legs in addition to the claws, which are of course derived from mouthparts, unlike the claws of Crustaceans such as lobsters, which are derived from the first pair of legs. Where this scorpion does stray from reality is in the presence of two horn-like protrusions and most of all in its adorable little face, which is nothing but a featureless purple ball and two cartoon eyes under the helmet-like shell of the cephalothorax. This makes it another early-game monster that follows the design style of the slime and dracky, though the scorpion would not stick around as a series constant, making relatively sporadic appearances in newer titles.

The Scorpion was also our first taste of in-game "ecology" in my stream of the 3ds Dragon Quest Monsters II, where they can be encountered in the desert as a natural predator of the Cactiball! The occasional scorpion can be seen chasing down and killing these sapient cacti, after which the scorpion even gets a happy little music note over its head. Does that make this an unusual case of an "herbivorous" scorpion, or do Cactiball have meat inside?

The scorpion would also appear in the spinoff manga The Adventure of Dai and its anime adaptation, but this series had no direct involvement by Akira Toriyama, and here the scorpion takes on a much larger, more menacing design with sinister red eyes, a third horn, a fanged mouth with mandible-like tusks and, unfortunately, the incorrect number of legs. Known as the "Demon Scorpion" or "Evil Scorpion," this creature is treated a bit more like a unique character and would qualify as a distinct monster...

...Except for the fact that in Dragon Quest of the Stars, an event themed around the Adventure of Dai would represent the Demon Scorpion as a recolor of the classic scorpion. This is just to save on assets of course, but Dai debuted when there were no other scorpion monsters in the games, so we can assume it was originally a reinvention of the classic enemy.

...At least until, even more recently, the 2020's saw the Adventure of Dai get its own dedicated video game adaptations, with the Giant Evil Demon Scorpion receiving its own dedicated 3-d models. It's certainly a cool design in its own right, one I think I'd definitely give the same rating to as its smaller cousins, even if they have nearly opposite charm.