Mordax Hunt and Miscellaneous Updates

Part of the reason I've been updating so infrequently (aside from losing the household's good camera) was because the end of my senior year at OSU was rearing its ugly head -- but classes are over, and I graduate a week from today, so I hope to update more frequently. I also plan on getting the camera fixed (or buying a new one) once I put my degree to use for employment . . . though that may be a while.


Mordax Hunt

The second annual BugZoo camping trip was last weekend. Last year I found the scorpions featured in this post, and as we booked the same campground, I hoped to catch a few more this year. I had also been contacted by a researcher in the Midwest interested in doing a developmental study on this species who had requested that I collect a few gravid females for him.

The first night of blacklighting was at the same spot we found the specimens last year, and like last year, we didn't find much. Just five small juveniles. Coming back a second night, we looked a little farther along the road, where it was more of a cliff face than a talus slope, and we hit the jackpot! Fourteen specimens, including the four females I needed. The majority were hiding in cracks and crevices along the cliff face -- a few got away because they disappeared into cracks between huge pieces of rock that we couldn't possibly move. We probably saw at least twenty that night.

The count for the whole trip: five adult females (four gravid), five adult males, five immature females, five immature males. Another BugZoo member who provided the blacklight kept the non-gravid adult female (who stung him when he collected her, so we figured they were meant to be), two of the adult males, and three of the immatures. I sent the four gravid females to the researcher and gave the BugZoo a male and female subadult pair. I kept the remainder for my personal collection. It's nice to have a few more males, as I only had one prior to this.

(On a side-note, if anyone reading this is concerned about over-collecting: as I mentioned, there were a number that got away before we had a chance to collect them, and there were likely many more hiding beneath rocks that we never even saw -- our collecting was only by sweeping the blacklight around the area and overturning only a handful of the hundreds of rocks beside the road.)


Miscellaneous Updates

A friend of my fiancee's who lives near Phoenix routinely finds Arizona bark scorpions (Centruroides sculpturatus) in and around her home. She was gracious enough to agree to ship them to me after I sent her a box full of vials and some shipping funds. To date, she has sent me two males of the aforementioned species, one Vaejovis spinigerus, and one Hadrurus arizonensis (missing the movable finger of one chela, which makes for interesting feeding observations). I'm hoping she finds a female bark scorpion; I'd love to have a little community of these guys.

On the bark scorpion note, the professor who accompanied me on a mordax hunt last month is going to be visiting Arizona later this month and has offered to collect some scorpions for me. He seems genuinely excited about the prospect, especially after seeing the H. arizonensis I recieved.

My Centruroides vittatus seems to have reabsorbed the embryos again. I think I should just keep my eyes peeled for a cheap male.

I fed the majority of my scorpions last night. My Tityus stigmurus readily accepted prey, which was somewhat of a relief, because none have molted in several months and didn't seem to be growing much. They often panic when offered prey. My cave spider (Damon sp.) also ate a large cockroach -- she always worries me because she waits until I'm not looking before eating, so I never know if she eats. It doesn't help that she's such a skinny species.

The Antrodiaetus pacificus I found in April has excavated a sizeable burrow in her container -- it runs along the bottom so I can see her hiding out quite well. No eggsac as of yet.

Another Uroctonus mordax Hunt

After showing a professor of mine a U. mordax and letting him hold it, he got excited enough to want to go catch some. On top of that, his youngest daughter is a budding bugoholic and also got excited at the prospect of finding scorpions. So, tonight we headed off to my favorite scorpion-hunting site in Oregon -- myself, my professor, his wife, and their three kids.

I directed them to a pile of old plywood that I'd found a male / female pair under the previous fall. While chatting about how to find them, lifting up the second piece of plywood yielded our first specimen: an adult female. I couldn't believe how excited everyone was, but it's always fun the first time you see a scorpion just sitting out there in the wild, glowing under your blacklight. I handed off the BL to my prof. and moved the scorpion to a vial.

In the same pile of plywood, a few minutes later, we turned up another female. Everyone was understandably excited, finding two so close together. We had now tied this pile's yield compared to prior expeditions.

Nearly finished with this pile, we flipped over one long piece to discover not one, but TWO females hiding beneath! After much shuffling of vials, we caught both of them, only to discover another female hanging out between the two others. The count so far: five adult females, one for each vial I'd brought.

The pile was exhausted so we headed up the hill to check a couple other spots I'd found scorpions at before. We packed a few napkins around those we'd already collected in case we had to double up on vials. After much rock-flipping and log-turning I eventually located a feisty juvenile under a piece of bark on the side of a hill. My professor's daughters thought it was cute for being so much smaller.

Climbing back down a hill a few minutes later I happened to sweep my light in the path I was about to step and found ANOTHER, out in the open! This one was a little smaller, possibly a subadult. My prof's family had already headed back to the truck with the vials, so he held onto her while we walked down. As luck would have it, randomly sweeping my light across the hill beside the road as I walked by revealed a glint of bright green. Yet another scorpion, this time a male hanging out in his burrow. I kept watch as I waited for someone to return with a vial.

Before tonight, the total number of scorpions I'd found here was six. Tonight's collection alone totaled EIGHT!

Final count: five adult females (all of them fat enough to suggest they're gravid), one adult male, one unsexed juvenile, and one male subadult.

One adult female and the male went to my prof's daughter to keep. If his other daughters still want one after the novelty wears off, they might get another one or two.

Pics up soon, hopefully.

Edit: Here be the pics!

Definitely time to get the DSLR fixed.

The four females I kept, along with the baby male:


The subadult male . . . he's got a real attitude!



Three of the ladies. You can see that they're pretty fat in this pic.


And a shot of "junior."

Antrodiaetus pacificus

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to stumble upon one of the Mygalomorph spiders native to Oregon. (For those not in the know, Mygalomorphs are the more "primitive" spiders that include tarantulas and are seldom encountered in temperate climes.)

I knew that at least several species of Antrodiaetus were found in Oregon, but I had heard they were almost impossible to find because the entrances to their burrows are so well-camouflaged. I found this one by pure dumb luck, lifting a few random pieces of dead wood to see what was underneath.

(For more pictures, as well as larger versions, please visit my gallery. Photo credit goes to FunnyLori, camera provided courtesy of Rabscuttle.)

I brought her to a few entomologists I know to confirm the genus as well as the fact that she's a mature female. They told me that mature specimens can live up to five years and that there's a distinct possibility she's gravid. My own research confirmed the species as A. pacificus - the most convincing feature is the single tergite present on her abdomen. Females of this species have one whereas males have three.

This girl is currently housed in a mini-habitat based on suggestions made by the entomologists. I'm going to watch it for a turret (burrow entrance) and offer her prey in a couple days. With luck, I'll look in one day to see dozens of her miniatures running about searching for springtails to eat.

More babies on the way?

So I know I haven't updated in a long time -- mainly 'cause our SLR died in December and I prefer to provide pictures when I update. I've had a few deaths, a few molts, etc. since the last update.

But I checked on the communal U. mordax tank today and thought I saw embryos through the tergites of one of my females while she was stinging her prey. Huzzah! The last brood I had was in July, so it will probably be a few months.

That reminds me -- I've been heating / humidifying / feeding my female C. vittatus. She's definitely reformed the embryos but refuses to pop.

More molts

Checked on the Hottentotta today. The pudgy one molted, and the slender one died. No great surprise there.

I just hope that among the survivors I have at least one male / female pair that survives to adulthood. If I succeed and breed a second generation, I'm DEFINITELY setting up a hotbox for the young.

I checked on my limited tarantula collection -- one of my OBTs and my Avicularia versicolor both molted.

Long-awaited molts

Doing the rounds today I discovered that three of my five Hottentotta judaicus have FINALLY molted to third instar.

I got eight 2I that were born sometime in May of 2008; by July, three had died. None seemed to be putting on much weight and all were extremely skittish when disturbed, so I wasn't sure if they were even aware of prey when I introduced it. I didn't really know what was going on -- the person who sent them to me said they were hearty eaters.

I did know that I was probably keeping them too far on the cool side (they hail from Jordan, and my apartment doesn't get quite that warm) but other sources suggested they don't need to be kept under very hot conditions to do well.

Either way, when we moved the bugs into the bedroom for the winter I put all of them right next to the heater, where it's usually at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Now three have molted, one's fat and looking ready to molt, and one's still on the slender side.

I'd post pics, but the SLR is currently out of commission.

Pseudoscorpion followup

A few interesting points I came across:

A) Reproduction is almost identical to Amblypygids

B) They mature at 4th instar

C) Mine is at least a year old (adult)

D) Mine isn't terribly old because it's still agile enough to climb smooth surfaces without a problem

E) I'll probably get a couple years out of this guy (longevity is 3-4 years after maturity)