Recent research has revealed that scorpion venom contains short-chain peptides with the specificity on K⁺ or Cl^－ channels, in addition to the knowledge of many kinds of long-chain peptides with the specificity on Na⁺ channels. According to the similarity of molecular structure and/or function, they have been classified into several groups. These short-chain scorpion peptides are playing more and more important role in studying the structure and function of K⁺ or Cl^－ channels. The advance of structure and function of short-chain scorpion peptides in recent years was briefly introduced.