The flat rock scorpion's body is compressed to a few millimetres in depth, an adaptation to living in horizontal cracks in granite and sandstone. Once inside, it braces with its legs and the roughened surfaces of its body, and extraction by a predator becomes very difficult. The pedipalps are strong and are used to hold and crush prey directly.
Male length records exceed 20 centimetres, making the species the longest scorpion known, though the much bulkier emperor scorpion is heavier. Most of the excess in males is tail, which is elongated well beyond what a sting requires and is thought to have a role in male-male interactions rather than in predation.
The venom is regarded as weak, with stings causing little more than local pain, consistent with the general pattern that heavily built, crevice-dwelling scorpions invest less in venom. Whether the extreme male tail length is sexually selected or serves a mechanical role in crevice locomotion has not been settled.