Beginning in the northern Mexico Border States, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas, C. vittatus’s range extends northward through Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, to reach as far north as Thayer County, Nebraska.

In all, the range includes the following states: Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

[1] A wide geographic distribution allows C. vittatus to occupy desert, deciduous and coniferous forest, and temperate grassland [biomes], where they can be found in crevices under rock and surface debris, vegetation, old rural structures like sheds and barns, and houses during the day.

[3] Centruroides implies this species is a semi-arboreal one,[3] the striped bark scorpion spends a substantial amount of its time on the ground; and can be found under rock and surface debris, within vegetation, and in weathered rural structures such as old sheds and barns during the day.

[3] The terrestrial preferences of this species carry into the night hours, when the scorpion emerges from its temporary shelter at or after sunset to forage for potential prey.

[6] Neurotoxins in the venom can also cause paresthesia and muscle spasms, while more severe cases have resulted in a more intense hypersensitive reaction, characterized by symptoms such as angioedema, abdominal cramping, chest tightness, flushing, lightheadedness, a large localized reaction, nausea and vomiting, syncope, shortness of breath, urticaria, wheezing, and in the most severe cases, anaphylactic shock.

C. vittatus venom contains the toxin CvlV4, which has been shown to target and decrease the inactivation of NA+ channels located in the Dorsal root ganglia of Nociceptors (sensory neurons that detect pain), resulting in a prolonged activation of action potentials.