Videos, Emperor Not Mature

So it seems I was incorrect when I earlier stated that one of my male P. imperator matured - I flooded them out of their burrows tonight and still saw three subadults. I'm guessing the exuvium I found was an older one that had been pushed out of a burrow.

In other news, I uploaded several videos to YouTube last month and never posted them here. There's several of my attempts at mating Uroctonus mordax as well as some clips of second-instar Centruroides sculpturatus on the female's back.

They can be found at my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/mrmordax

Centruroides sculpturatus Mating

Last week, I separated the second-instar young from my female Centruroides sculpturatus. Yesterday I brought her and my two males to work with me; she was in one container, and the two males in another. I traded her places with one of the males to prepare for a trade later in the day.

She had not eaten since before I got her, but the male I introduced her to quickly sought out her chela. Within a few minutes they were performing the Promenade à deux, which continued for roughly half an hour. They were not disturbed by moving the container around to show my colleagues what was going on.

At one point, my boss walked in, so I lifted the container up to show him. I distinctly recall seeing them still grasping chela when I reached for them, but by the time my boss saw them they had separated. I glanced in and saw a spermatophore on the bark.


More photos are available here.

Uroctonus mordax Spermatophore

I brought the spermatophore in to work on Wednesday and got a few closeups under the microscope. Very interesting and bizarre.

The larger version of this picture is available here, and a few more shots can be found in this gallery.

I've also uploaded several videos from Tuesday night's attempts to my YouTube account, including one of male D's rejection.

Notes, Part II

Male B, female 3:
Male observed sexually stinging female. Following morning, no spermatophore found. Pair separated, will attempt again.

Male C, female 4:
Spermatophore found in morning. Pair separated.

Notes

So I don't forget what happened tonight.

Uroctonus mordax mating attempts:

Male B, female 3:
Male approached female under bark, male later upside down hanging from bark, pair later upside down, no promenade observed, male coaxed female onto bark. Upon examination for spermatophore, pair separated. Male later returned under bark, last seen as both under bark (male's rear protruding), cannot tell if pedipalps are grasped. Will leave overnight and examine for spermatophore in morning.

Male C, female 4:
Male initially very confused about where to grasp female; wrong pedipalp and leg, metasoma and leg, both pedipalps wrong while sitting astride female. Eventually gave female a brief sexual sting in the membrane behind the left chela. Unsuccessful sexual sting behind right chela followed by extended sting behind left chela (greater than ten minutes). After this observed extended promenade a deux -- sometimes grasping one pedipalp, sometimes both, a few instances of cheliceral kisses on the part of the male observed as well. Male walked both across provided bark and bare substrate. No spermatophore observed as of yet. Will leave overnight and examine for spermatophore in morning.

Male D, female 5:
Male did not notice female's burrow initially. When directly introduced, female came partway out. Apparent standoff ensued, with both specimens metasomas raised and periodically waving pedipalps (video forthcoming). Female briefly grasped male's pedipalps. Pair separated to prevent injury; male now believed to be large subadult as opposed to initial assumption of small adult.

Centruroides sculpturatus:
Several juveniles wandering off female. Majority swept from female's back prior to moving her to a separate container. Will hopefully separate all second instars tomorrow evening. Current brood size estimated at >20.

Centruroides at Second Instar

Right on schedule! A week after birth, the latest brood is molting to second instar. A better picture as first instars:


And a picture my fiancee took last night, the majority having molted:


(The scaled-down version doesn't do it justice, click here for the full version.) The one on the "shoulder" of the female's left pedipalp was trying to wriggle free of the last of its exuvium. I think the "humpbacked" one towards the upper-left of the pile is also in the process of molting.

I have another male hopefully arriving today, and a potential exchange lined up -- the new male for another gravid female.

Male Emperor Matures

Last night I scanned over a few tanks with my blacklight and discovered a disheveled pile of exoskeleton in my subadult emperor tank. I momentarily thought that one of my males had been cannibalized, but my fiancee thought it looked more like a molt (she was right).

I'd noticed a few weeks ago that one of them was getting incredibly fat and heading for a molt. It seems as though I was right! Unfortunately, he's too far back in the burrow to get a good look at, and the tankmates trampled the exuvium to the point that it's not worth displaying.

The female I recently acquired (see two posts down) seems to be doing better with her grain mites. Most wild-caught emperors seem to give birth in the spring, so if she hasn't had a brood by then, I'll try putting a male in with her. (Hopefully the other two will mature by then to improve the odds.)

Centruroides sculpturatus Brood

A couple of weeks ago, I traded one of my two male C. sculpturatus for a gravid female. Yesterday, that trade paid off.

New Emperor Arrives with Problems

There was a local show this weekend that a couple of invert-oriented friends were attending. When asked if I wanted anything, I requested a female Pandinus imperator if they could find one for less than $10. I have three subadult males (one of which is looking very close to molting) and wanted to try breeding this species. I'm probably the only person in this hobby who's first emperor DIDN'T arrive already gravid.

I think sending my friends good sexing photos paid off, because they brought me this huge $7 beauty.


She was moving around too much to get a good measurement, but I estimate her to be between five and six inches (chelicerae to telson). Watching her "glass-dance," I was able to tell that she's definitely a female.


Now, for those of you experienced in this hobby: do you notice anything unusual about the next photo?


Yep, she's got grain mites. This is actually the first time I've encountered them personally. The usual advice is to put the scorpion in a dry ICU tank (with a water dish, at least) to dehydrate and kill the mites. The other advice is to find predatory mites from other tanks to feed on the grain mites.

I'm sticking to the latter method, because the LAST thing I want is for a forest scorpion to give birth in a dry environment. Odds are in favor of this female being gravid. So, for the time being, I've added as many predatory mites as I could find in my other tanks and I'm keeping her quarantined. Hopefully it pays off.

Daring First Instar

The first instar U. mordax that left mom's back early made it to 2I successfully. (S)he just took a day longer than the rest of the brood. I've named this one Dr. Livingstone.

I have a few pics of the molting, but the camera I was using just isn't up to the old DSLR's abilities. So here's a picture of one of the other broods molting to second instar. Some have molted, some haven't, and a couple are in the process of molting.

All Those Babies . . .

. . . sure take a long time to feed.


My original estimate of 160 was actually spot-on. 70 Vaejovis spinigerus and 90 Uroctonus mordax, although two U. mordax died shortly after molting to second instar. I've given a few away and I'm open to selling all of the V. spinigerus and up to half of the U. mordax, but no one's responded to my ads.

I'd like to track the growth and development of the ones I plan on keeping -- that's why some have labels indicating which female they came from.

I have two remaining U. mordax females that look suspiciously pudgy. Hmmm . . .

Myriad of Births

"Update more frequently" . . . HA! Well, at least my dad gave my fiancee his decent point-and-shoot, so I no longer have an excuse to not take pictures.

My former professor returned from Arizona with a handful of Vaejovis spp., the largest of which appeared to be a heavily gravid V. spinigerus (or Hoffimanus spinigerus, if you're in the Soleglad and Fett camp). More on her later.

Two weekends ago I was preparing to leave for a family reunion. Friday afternoon I checked on one of my U. mordax females (collected May 1 with professor et al) to show a visiting guest, only to discover she had given birth. Returning home on Sunday evening revealed two more from the same trip had followed suit. By Friday, all four collected May 1 were carrying broods. A quick check also revealed that the large Vaejovis from Arizona also had a pile of young on her back.

Based on the one brood I experienced last summer, I estimated that the first of this year's would molt to second instar on Monday (yesterday). I surprised myself by being correct.

First brood discovered:

Molting to second-instar yesterday morning:

Second brood discovered:

The general consensus is that first instars are doomed without mom. This little guy from brood #2 decided to prove that wrong. He's still fine after having been away from the burrow for four days.

Third brood discovered (this female sealed herself in and burrowed to the bottom of the tank -- fortunately she cleared out an area against the bottom so I could photograph her):

Fourth brood discovered:

And the Vaejovis -- this species is known for having broods of 60 or more young.

In addition to all of these, I have three more female U. mordax. Two of these look like they may be gravid. One spent all winter with a male (recently died, assumed to have been old age) and one was collected at the end of last summer from Detroit. I'm fairly sure that populations from the Cascade Mountains give birth later in the year than those collected in the Coast Range, so we'll have to wait and see what she does.

I also have a friend whom I gave a female on another collecting trip in May. He told me she's looking fatter, and I suspect he'll give me any offspring rather than deal with them himself. Current estimate of young in my possession is 160; if I get young from the other females, my estimate would rise to 235.

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.