a scary encounter

I did a MSc on reintroductions of Iris atropurpurea. part of the job was to count how many plants had leaves, flowers and fruit - how successful were the reintroductions. So I was happily counting leaves, when this fellow came from between them, angry and waving its sting. I backed out quickly, and let him relax - and for the rest of this group of plants I gave an estimate, not an exact number...
from that point, I was much more careful when approaching a group of Iris plants...
this is one of the deadly scorpions, I am very fortunate I was quick enough and didn't get stung.

this is the Iris: