Scorpion

蠍 means “scorpion.” Its left part 虫 marks an animal category, while 歇 hints at the sound. In Mandarin the reading is xiē, entered as xie in Pinyin, the standard romanized spelling of Mandarin. Japanese reads it さそり (sasori); the word is usually written in kana, Japan’s syllabic script.

A Japanese dictionary cites さそり around 850 and says it may then have referred to a burrowing stinging wasp. Japanese dictionaries list 蠍 as the kanji spelling for scorpion.

蝎 is a variant form of 蠍

Chinese character dictionaries link 蝎 to 蠍 as a variant for the same scorpion word. The different shape is a writing-form distinction, not a different animal.