Bumping into the Species Scale with the Scalar Potential

As a quantum gravity cut-off, the species scale ?s$\Lambda _s$ gets naturally compared to the energy scale of a scalar potential V in an EFT. In this note, the species scale, its rate | backward difference ?s|/?s$|\nabla \Lambda _s|/\Lambda _s$ and their field dependence, to those of a scalar potential is compared. To that end, a string compactification leading to a scalar potential with the same properties as the species scale, namely, being positive, starting at a maximum in the bulk of field space and going asymptotically to zero is first identified. The trajectory followed in our 14-fields scalar potential is the steepest descent. Evaluating the rate | backward difference V|/V$|\nabla V|/V$ along this path, a local maximum, or bump, a feature noticed as well for the species scale are observed. The origin of this bump for the scalar potential, and compare it to that of the species scale are investigated.