Hungry desert-dwelling wild mice can ignore the pain of stings of scorpions so as to gulp them up for a meal. This was revealed by scientists said Thursday. This unusual tactic for existence has helped grasshopper mice in using the poison of the Arizona bark scorpion. This scorpion is found in the southwestern United States and Mexico and is used to numb its unbearable sting.

The findings could suggest exciting objectives for drug companies on the look for an ideal painkiller. This painkiller would not cause any type of addiction, researchers said in the US journal Science.

The sting of Arizona bark scorpion is fierce and can be deadly. This was revealed by lead researcher Ashlee Rowe of the University of Texas at Austin. She said, "Most people describe it as the sensation of being burned by a cigarette and then having a nail driven through it or being branded".

She also said that if a person is stung, the pain would probably last from several minutes to several hours.

In lab experiments, scientists observed that when usual white lab mice were introduced with scorpion poison in their back paws, they significantly increased their paw licking. This was revealed in the study. An injection of saline caused less licking as compared to pain caused in above case.