Mike's Scorpions

Videos, Emperor Not Mature

2009-10-06T22:26:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-18T13:02:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T00:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

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 . . .

2009-08-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

. . . 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

2009-07-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-06-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-02-22T20:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-10T19:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-01T18:38:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-30T09:40:00.001-08:00

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)

Pseudoscorpion

2008-12-29T21:28:00.001-08:00

Some days, I just love my job . . . 'cause look what one of my colleagues found trying to escape from a tub of hazelnut orchard debris:

For an idea of size, the deli cup he's in has a diameter of about an inch. I haven't officially measured him (her? how do you sex these things?) but he's probably around 5mm. Pretty good-sized, actually.

It would be kinda cool if it were a gravid female, but then I'd have to find something as small as mites to feed the young.

Based on a few pictures I turned up, I'm guessing it's Chelifer cancroides, but I have no means of confirming that.

Latrodectus geometricus producing an egg sac

2008-12-13T10:14:00.001-08:00

The title says it all. I apologize for the video quality, but despite having an awesome DSLR for still photos, the only video device I have is my cellphone.

(In case the embed isn't working, you can find the video here on YouTube as well.)

Unfortunately, this isn't the specimen that I want to start producing sacs. This is the dark-morph I got from a friend in Georgia -- the same one whose hatched sac I posted photos of yesterday. Oh, and those slings plumped up considerably after they finished their cockroach.

Centruroides vittatus, widow spiders, centipedes, and a vertebrate

2008-12-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

This is the female Centruroides vittatus that I mentioned may have absorbed her embryos. She's finishing off a cockroach in these pictures that she eagerly seized and immediately stung earlier today. She's fattened up considerably in the past couple days and I'm hoping the food and boosted warmth and humidity will help her kick-start some fresh embryos.

My two pairs of Latrodectus hesperus have been cohabiting for almost a week now and neither male has been eaten. Hopefully I'll get some sacs from these girls soon.

I tried getting a shot of the other pair but it didn't turn out -- same with my mated L. geometricus. She's gotten VERY fat and still hasn't produced any sacs yet. Luckily, my other female's sac hatched recently:

I haven't closely examined those two photos, but I estimated by looking at the slings themselves that there's around 80.

Now for a few critters I haven't posted about yet. Here are my two centipedes; the first is an immature Scolopendra subspinipes that I bought as a pling (pedeling) in October 2006. This is the only species of centipede that has a human death attributed to its venom.

This next one is an Ethmostigmus trigonopodus that I bought in May of 2007. I have no idea if it's full-grown (it's a good 2"-3").

And finally, a vertebrate. This is my fiancee's blue-tongued skink. He was hanging out near the side of his enclosure instead of freaking out and hiding, so I thought I'd take a couple pictures.

Good news, bad news

2008-12-11T11:55:00.001-08:00

Bad news: the last of my Centruroides margaritatus died. It was almost ready to molt to 5th instar, I think. There goes that community idea. This leaves me with six communal species, assuming I can get my C. vittatus to re-produce that brood she was carrying. She eagerly fed today, so that's a good sign.

Good news: my second Latrodectus geometricus sac hatched the other day. I estimate at least 80 slings. I'll try to post pictures tonight or this weekend. (The first sac from this particular female was a dud.)

The female I mated still hasn't produced any sacs for me. My L. hesperus pairs are still cohabiting after nearly a week, though.

Minor updates

2008-12-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finally received a large quantity of plastic 40-dram vials that I'd been waiting on for quite some time. I took it as an opportunity to rehouse all my juvenile scorpions along with a few other critters. While doing so, I noticed:

-- Some of my T. stigmurus are getting pudgy, but none have molted yet
-- Eight of my remaining U. mordax from July's brood are now 3rd instar
-- One of my juvenile WC U. mordax is either 3I or 4I (it's bigger than my brood's 3Is but not by much)
-- My H. judaicus are all still 2I (I can't quite replicate Jordan's temperatures in my current setup) but have been putting on weight and may molt soon
-- My C. margaritatus is getting fatter (I believe it to currently be 4I)
-- My C. vittatus may have absorbed her embryos (I received a few tips on how to get her to regenerate them from a fellow hobbyist; if I don't have any luck he can find me another)
-- One of my S. grossa dropped a fifth eggsac:
--- sac #1's survivor is growing and doing well
--- sac #2 has one large survivor and one tiny survivor
--- sac #3 has a handful of survivors
--- sac #4 is mostly still there
--- I suspect that these don't cannibalize as much as true widows; there's lots of dead slings at the bottom that don't look like food boluses
-- My first L. geometricus eggsac was infertile, the second looks ready to explode with slings
-- The L. geometricus I mated still has not produced any sacs
-- Same for the L. hesperus I mated

I didn't really feel like dealing with my two male L. hesperus, so I put them in with my females -- the larger one with the female he mated with earlier, the smaller one with my virgin female.

Completely unrelated to bugs

2008-12-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

My visitor map tells me I have a reader from just outside of Kladno (Libušín) in the Czech Republic. (I've also seen a reader or two in Prague.) My dad was born in Prague and grew up in Kladno.

Dobrý den!

By the way, if any of my readers feel like commenting on my posts . . . go for it! I'd like to hear others' thoughts on my collection and the hobby.

If anyone's a member of the forums I'm on, feel free to bring it up there as well.

Hadogenes paucidens molts to 3rd instar

2008-11-22T15:38:00.001-08:00

A while back I received 11 second-instar Hadogenes paucidens. Unfortunately, the majority died (I've heard that this species is difficult to rear from early instars), and I was left with only two. I checked on them today and discovered that one had finally molted to third instar!

This species is very slow-growing, so I'd been waiting quite a while on it.

Here's the pudgy sibling that I'm still waiting on:

Minor spider updates and observations

2008-11-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

One of my two false-widows (Steatoda grossa) laid her fourth eggsac that I found today.

There was a huge gap between her first and second sacs. Then the third came before I even removed the second from her enclosure. Now that they've hatched out, there's a fourth.

The juvies in sacs numbers two and three are tag-teaming the two juvenile crickets I put in with each.

The one survivor from the first sac plumped up after having one this morning.

My sac-bearing Latrodectus geometricus attacked an old food bolus instead of the cricket I offered her today. Strange.

I'm feeding my four virgin L. hesperus today (two males, two females) and I'm going to try mating them over the weekend.

I fed my mated L. geometricus a good-sized cricket today. She plumped up considerably. I hope she starts dropping sacs soon (she's a pale morph, compared to the dark one that's already given me one sac).

Thought I'd share.

Cheers

Ultra-short U. mordax update

2008-11-07T21:29:00.001-08:00

Four of the five I gave away have now been confirmed as dead.

Roughly half of the ten that I kept have now molted to third instar.

U. mordax molt to 3I, new T. stigmurus

2008-10-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

The first Uroctonus mordax from July's brood molted to third instar this week. The molt went from Monday night into Tuesday morning, and these photos were taken on Saturday. This is at an age of approximately three months.

Apparently one of the five I gave away molted the same night but didn't survive -- after speaking with the owner it seems conditions may have been too dry. Three of the five I gave away have now died; the other two I haven't heard about since passing them on to other hobbyists.

A couple of the others look almost ready to molt as well. One or two don't look anywhere near it and don't seem very interested in prey.

In other news, I recently got five third-instar Tityus stigmurus from a friend of mine in Texas. These guys are parthenogenetic and communal as adults, so I shouldn't have any problem getting a community up and running.

Community Ambitions

2008-10-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

As stated before, I eventually want to have large display tanks for my communal species. Yesterday I was thinking of what sort of a goal I had in mind, and I came up with something along these lines:

The dimensions I came up with arbitrarily put the two left tanks at 6' x 2' -- if they have square cross-sections, then around 150 gallons!

Clockwise from upper left: H. longimanus, C. margaritatus, T. stigmurus, C. vittatus, H. judaicus, U. mordax, and P. imperator. The whole display would be about 12 feet long by 4 feet high. I'd have to spend a lot of money for a system where I could slide the tanks out to work on each one, especially because false bottoms will make the two on the left VERY heavy.

Each tank has a background photo from the country the species is native to (in the case of the US species, from a specific area they're found in).

Each will also be labeled:

Underneath the tanks would be a good place to keep feeders (cockroaches). I would probably also have a basic shelving system like I do now to keep the juveniles on (most of these species are communal only as adults).

I was discussing this with my fiancee -- to keep things even I'd want install a similar system for her tarantulas. :-D

Now we just have to get a house and I have to get a real job . . .

Miscellaneous Updates

2008-10-21T08:21:00.001-07:00

I figure it's about time for a few random updates since I haven't posted in nearly a month, so here they are.

------

I've been trying to downsize my collection a bit, mainly so I could focus on keeping communal species -- I'd rather have a large pile of deli cups if I know that the inhabitants can eventually be housed together. My current collection (scorpions only) has been reduced to:

0.1.0 Centruroides hentzi
0.0.1 Centruroides margaritatus
0.1.0 Centruroides vittatus
0.0.2 Hadogenes paucidens
0.1.0 Hadrurus arizonensis
0.1.8 Heterometrus longimanus
0.0.5 Hottentotta judaicus
0.0.4 Pandinus imperator
0.5.0 Tityus stigmurus
1.4.12 Uroctonus mordax
0.0.1 Vaejovis spinigerus

The only species on that list that aren't communal are the H. paucidens, V. spinigerus, and H. arizonensis. I plan on passing those onto other hobbyists soon. The C. hentzi is an adult female that I've had for over a year so I'm not thinking of breeding her again -- I may just keep her til she expires rather than giving her to someone without knowing her age. The C. margaritatus I've decided to keep until adulthood in the hopes of finding a mate (this is the bicolor morph which is very pretty, and I would love to have a community of them).

------

Last week I was stopping by the lab I used to work in, and as luck would have it, the woman who spotted the U. mordax that birthed this summer found another one! On the floor of a classroom she was in, no less.

I have no idea how, but a third-instar U. mordax somehow made its way into one of the buildings at OSU. The habitat for this species has to be at least ten miles away. I asked an entomologist in the building if he knew anything about it, and the closest answer he could think of was an escapee from a soil litter sample somewhere in the building.

It sure worked out well for me, though!

------

The same day as the arrival of the renegade U. mordax, I got a package from a friend of mine in Texas -- five third-instar Tityus stigmurus. This is a beautiful orange and black species native to Brazil that happens to be parthenogenic (for those of you who don't know, that means it's capable of reproducing asexually; a mature female will simply give birth to little clones of herself). Hopefully this will be the easiest community I've ever attempted.

------

Last night I was checking on my second instar U. mordax and noticed one in kind of a funny pose. My thought, since it wasn't moving but clearly wasn't in the "dead" pose, was that it was preparing to molt. Later that night a friend of mine to whom I gave one of the other 2I said hers was molting -- after double-checking on mine, I saw the same thing!

None of my other nine from this brood have molted yet, so hopefully they will soon. Some look like they're still to skinny (I hope they begin to feed more). Oh, and I found out another one of the five that I gave away died.

------

A couple weekends ago I was checking on my U. mordax community and lifted a rock where there had previously been one adult and one subadult female -- now, there was one adult female and half of one subadult female.

I took the larger female out in case she may have been gravid (gravid females are known to be less communal across a lot of species). It was dissapointing to see my collection shrink, but as the saying goes, "all scorpions are communal until they aren't."

I thought it may have been due to the size discrepancy, but within a few days my male and the other subadult female had occupied the same hide under the rock. Also, I saw one in the corner when I went to mist, and discovered it was sitting on top of a tankmate. Perhaps I just had a grouchy female.

------

The same female mentioned in the above minipost was taken on a community outreach and gave me my first sting experience with this species. I was a little disappointed at how weak it was -- it barely went beyond "dry sting" status, and that's only because I felt a little tingling after the fact.

If you're wondering, I was attempting to scootch the female off of my hand and onto a student's at the outreach, and she flicked her tail back at me. I felt her stinger connect (like brushing your finger against a pin) but felt no pain -- just a slight tingling a minute later. I figure it was somethign akin to a scorpion "warning shot." I used it as a chance to explain to the students how harmless this species was even if it does decide to sting.

------

And finally, a non-scorpion post.

A friend of mine from Georgia was able to pick up a few brown widows the last time she visited home and told me she had a male if I was interested. I initially had two males; one got eaten by a female and one was more or less a runt that just died.

I picked up a male and female from my friend (they were cohabiting, so I figured that was a good sign) on Thursday night last week (I write this on Tuesday morning). Friday night I introduced him to my only female. There was much web-dancing and moving about the tank, as well as some movement by the female, but I eventually grew bored and left them alone. I returned later and saw the male in position, and could clearly see the reproductive structure unwound from his pedipalp and in the female's ventral opening (forgive my lack of knowledge with spider anatomy).

Shortly after I arrived they separated and the male backed off from the female -- I assumed I disturbed them and he would now be eaten. However, when I checked back in 12 hours, they were mating again! As of last night they were still successfully cohabiting.

I figure I can leave the male in there, as he's been with all the females in my posession and has no further use for me. If he gets eaten, that's too bad; if he stays alive, that's an good example countering the "widow" status of his partner (though she did eat the first male I offered her).

------

Hopefully soon I'll be able to post pictures of the new T. stigmurus as well as the freshly-molted U. mordax.

V. spinigerus stillborns

2008-09-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting on one of my female Vaejovis spinigerus to birth since spring. This past Sunday (I write this on Friday, and the following pictures were taken on Thursday evening) I saw her in the "birth basket" stance, so I assumed she was going to give birth shortly. Then, nothing happened. Nothing happened for the next four days, either. Then on Thursday evening, I checked on her and saw she had a large white glob of something in one of her pinchers (she dropped it when I got the camera).

Yep, that's a cluster of stillborn scorpion embryos.

I have no idea how this happened or what caused it, but I have one thing to say about it:

I may email Kari McWest and see if he has anything to say on the matter.

U. mordax Community

2008-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yet another post about my favorite scorpion . . .

I finally reached one of my scorpion goals by setting up a community of this species: one male and five females collected in different areas of Oregon. The male and two of the females were those featured in this post, one female is the one featured in this post, one was the largest featured in this post, and the final female was collected in Eugene in 2007.

Here is the tank in its entirety:

Here's that stone on the right side at a different angle, to show one of the hides I provided:

I believe this is the female caught on Cougar Reservoir and the female that had a brood this summer:

And here is the male and one of the females caught on the same night:

The two others were hiding somewhere that I couldn't access as easily.

I believe the two most-recently caught females may be gravid, so I could have some more broods on my hands before long.

And just for fun, here's a map (looking east) of where these specimens came from:

Mordax not communal at 2I . . .

2008-09-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

So I saw a couple more little corpses when I checked this morning (), and decided to separate them this evening. I only found nine.

+ 26 in original brood
- 5 given to friends
- 4 unknown deaths (that number doesn't bother me so much)
- 9 recovered
------------------------
= 8 cannibalized

I guess that isn't too bad, but a 50/50 survival/cannibalism rate still kinda sucks. My H. longimanus only had 20% cannibalism.

So I think I'll be separating my next broods.

(I've been leaning towards specializing in this species and downsizing my collection a bit, so this is a handy piece of information to know for my two other gravid females.)

Successful U. mordax Hunt

2008-09-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

(Pardon the photo quality in advance -- we were using my friend's point-and-shoot, which as I'm sure you know, wouldn't work too well in the dark.)

After one pathetic attempt (one female) and one completely fruitless attempt, I went back to Botkin Road with a friend of mine in the hopes of finding some U. mordax. It seems we did it right this time -- the right spot at night (as opposed to the wrong spot at night, or the right spot in the day).

The first spot we found anything at was on an exposed hill that would have been in the sun a few hours earlier. We found one female and one male underneath some pieces of plywood laying on the dirt.

BL pic of one of them:
The male:
They were found on the portion of the hill below the road -- looking above the road didn't turn anything up. We went up the road about another 1/4 mile to another exposed area. The soil on the hills here is really REALLY loose, and so we found nothing checking the second hill, either. We were about to give up when we blacklit under a rock that was laying on some more stable soil on the hill.

Two second instars! They were found within six inches of each other. I would have loved to get a pic of the both of them, but one ran away before we could get the camera. Here's a couple shots of the other one:

We let those two go. The guy I was with thought he heard something, so we did a sweep of the hill with our lights before heading back to his truck. I swept my blacklight across the hill and something green caught my eye. It was another female about ten feet from me! We scrambled up the hill and easily scooped her into the cup that we photographed the little one in and decided to call it a night.

A few pics from when we got back . . .

Tyler's first handling experience:

The male / female from underneath the plywood:
The second female:

Gravid Centruroides vittatus

2008-08-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

While doing the rounds this afternoon, I noticed that the female Centruroides vittatus I brought back from Sanderson, Texas was in an unusual pose. (She's the one I never got around to photographing when I got home.)

For those of you unfamiliar to scorpions, those little white globes you can see through the tergites are scorpion embryos, meaning she's going to have babies in the near future.

Closeup:
You can also see a touch of mycosis on the left pectine -- I hope that it doesn't kill her before the babies molt to second instar.

I honestly didn't believe that this female was gravid when I first got her. The T.I.T.T.I.E.S. member who found and collected her thought she may be based on the fact that the vast majority of wild-caught females are. I was doubtful because she was so skinny when we found her (and had a voracious appetite when I got home), and we found a juvenile of this species elsewhere on the trip. Everything I saw was telling me she had just had her brood.

Shows what I know, huh?

Uroctonus mordax Breeding Report

2008-07-31T22:20:00.001-07:00

In April 2008, I was presented with a female Uroctonus mordax that was caught 14 miles west of Corvallis, Oregon.

The female on April 10:

As time progressed, she was observed to have grown larger, and she was suspected to be gravid. Possible embryos were observed through her membrane between the tergites and sternites. She was checked on in early July and had not yet undergone partuition.

On the afternoon July 13, 2008, the female was found with a brood of first-instar scorplings on her back.

Brood size at this time was estimated at greater than 16 scorplings. Humidity was raised and the female was left undisturbed to avoid stress that may lead to cannibalism.

The scorpions were checked on periodically throughout the next week by holding a flashlight to the side of the enclosure and looking through gaps between the piece of cork they were hiding under and the substrate. As all that was seen was a pile of white scorplings, the cork was not removed.

On the evening of July 23, 2008, a similar check raised suspicions that the young appeared too well-developed to still be first-instar (though they were still very white). The cork was removed for a brief photography opportunity.

These photographs revealed that the young had indeed begun to molt into second-instar. Because they were still so pale, it was assumed that this had happened very recently and they had not yet started to darken (wild observations found dark specimens believed to be second-instar, though it is possible they were third).

Another check on the morning of July 26th showed only slight darkening, but revealed that some of the young had begun to scatter from the mother's back.

The final check occurred on the evening of July 31st, 2008, and revealed that all but three of the young had left the mother (one remained on her "face," one on her pedipalp, and one was hanging on underneath). Looking at the substrate and the cork that the young were hiding on gave a final count of 26 second-instar Uroctonus mordax.

The female was removed at this point to hopefully determine the communal nature of juveniles of this species, and prey (pinhead crickets) was offered at this time. No feeding has yet been observed.

The young were found to fluoresce at this point, so it is assumed that their exoskeletons have finished sclerotization.

Basic timeline:

April 2008: female acquired
July 13: brood discovered
July 23: 2I discovered
July 26: slight darkening of young, scattering started
July 31: young completely scattered, mother removed, prey offered

Updated Collection

2008-07-24T07:42:00.001-07:00

Since I've started this blog, I had quite a few deaths but I also gained a few scorpions. Here's an updated list of the species I have:

Scorpions
---------
0.1.0 Androctonus amoreuxi
2.0.0 Androctonus mauritanicus
0.1.0 Centruroides hentzi
0.0.1 Centruroides margaritatus
0.1.0 Centruroides vittatus
0.0.1 Diplocentrus lindo
0.1.11 Hadogenes paucidens
0.1.0 Hadrurus arizonensis
0.1.8 Heterometrus longimanus
0.0.5 Hottentotta judaicus
1.0.0 Mesobuthus martensii
1.1.0 Pandinus cavimanus
1.0.4 Pandinus imperator
0.1.0 Paruroctonus boreus
0.0.1 Paruroctonus gracilior
0.4.17 Uroctonus mordax
0.1.0 Vaejovis coahuilae
1.2.0 Vaejovis spinigerus <-- very gravid

Tarantulas
----------
0.0.1 Brachypelma smithi
0.0.1 Grammastola rosea
0.0.1 Avicularia purpurea

Other Arachnids
---------------
0.0.1 Mastigoproctus giganteus
0.1.0 Damon sp.
0.4.3 Latrodectus hesperus
0.0.5 Latrodectus geometricus
0.2.~ Steatoda grossa

Myriapods
----------
0.1.0 Archispirostreptus gigas
0.0.1 Ethmostigmus trigonopodus
0.0.1 Scolopendra subspinipes (HK Giant morph)

Cockroaches
------------
Blaberus fusca
Blaptica dubia
Blatta lateralis
Gromphadorhina portentosa
Nauphoeta cinerea

Vertebrates
-----------
1.0.0 Elaphe guttata
1.1.0 Felis silvestris

The snake in theory belongs to my fiancee, but I always feed it because she's kind of squeamish about that. I should also be able to trade one of my Androctonus mauritanicus sometime next month for a female.

Uroctonus mordax to 2I

2008-07-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've been checking on my Uroctonus mordax brood almost daily the past week, but I'd only been checking by holding a flashlight to the side of the container and looking underneath mom's hide from the edge of the tank. Each time I saw white, assumed nobody had molted, and put the light away until next time.

When I looked tonight, I thought I saw more definition to the scorplings than usual, so I risked removing the hide for some photography. And what do you know? They've begun molting to second instar!
Compared to my photo from last week, you can see that there's less "pudge," and they were also eager to scurry from mom's back at my disturbing them. In the next photo, you can see one of the molts on mom's carapace.

Either this species remains white at 2I, or I caught them recently enough that no one has had a chance to darken.

I'm thinking of removing mom from this container when the young scatter and trying a "juvenile community," to see if it's like emperor scorpions (juveniles do fine together) or bark scorpions (juveniles happily snack on each other). As these are forest scorpions, I'm hoping for the former, but I have heard of cannibalism in this species when different sizes were kept together.

Update from 7/26: More have molted and began to darken up.

Uroctonus mordax Brood

2008-07-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

While checking on and feeding my invertebrates today, I discovered I was correct when I thought my largest female Uroctonus mordax was gravid.

I counted at least 16 scorplings, with more possibly buried underneath. For those of you who aren't aware this species is native to the Pacific Northwest. This particular specimen was collected around 14 miles west of Corvallis, Oregon, in the Coast Range.

Here's a modified version of the above photo to better show the babies:

West Texas Scorpions

2008-07-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from an invertebrate excursion to West Texas, and I managed to bring back a few scorpions with me that I just got IDed by Kari McWest. (If you don't know who that is, he's one of the biggest names in the scorpion field, especially with taxonomy.) First up are a couple Vaejovids.

This is Paruroctonus gracilior, found near the famous Marfa Mystery Lights. Forgive the picture quality, but this guy is tiny. I have a feeling it's immature (I forgot to ask Kari how big the adults get). We found several of these hiding in the crown of a small grassy plant that was growing in the area.

Next up is another Vaejovid, Vaejovis coahuilae. There were a lot of Vaejovis species around, and I forget which came from where, but I think this one was found near Ft. Davis. Most were found blacklighting at night while they were wandering around the area. A few were spotted flipping rocks during the day.

And finally, Diplocentrus lindo. These guys have got some real attitude for being so small. Also collected near Ft. Davis.
We also found a couple Centruroides vittatus. I didn't manage to get any good photos of the female I got, but I might post some later. She was collected near Sanderson.

Heterometrus longimanus molting

2008-06-08T01:02:00.001-07:00

I was doing the rounds yesterday and when I went to check on my juvenile Heterometrus longimanus community, I managed to catch one little guy in the act of molting (something I've only witnessed once before in a much smaller scorpion).

When I found him at 8:20 PM:

One of his tankmates came out to check on him and see what I was up to (note the threat posture):

A blacklight pic for fun -- he decided to molt right beside another exuvium:

A weird shot of what the pedipalps look like during all this (8:42 PM):10:48 PM and the pedipalps are free:

Finished up just after midnight:

That's his exuvium on the left, along with the one he molted next to:
For another 7 pictures of the sequence, please go here.

My First "Wild-Caught"

2008-06-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

I went camping last weekend with a few friends with the intention of FINALLY capturing some Uroctonus mordax -- the small species of forest scorpion native to Oregon and Washington (and yes, California too).

Success! I found two blacklighting on Saturday, thanks to some teamwork with my fiancee.

The next morning I went back for some rock-flipping and found a third that managed to get away. (Photo credit goes to my fiancee.)

For more pics and the whole story please see my post on ScorpionForum.

Centruroides margaritatus molted to 3I

2008-05-28T17:25:00.001-07:00

I came home today to find one of my Centruroides margaritatus had molted to 3rd instar (I know it happened today because I checked on them this morning). Two out of three of my C. margaritatus have now molted since acquiring them -- I think the third one was already 3I.

My Collection

2008-05-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Here is my current collection of scorpions as of today. For those of you who don't know, X.Y.Z = X males, Y females, Z unsexed.

0.1.0 Androctonus amoreuxi
2.0.0 Androctonus mauritanicus
0.1.0 Babycurus jacksoni
1.1.1 Centruroides hentzi
0.0.3 Centruroides margaritatus
1.1.13 Hadogenes paucidens
0.1.0 Hadrurus arizonensis
0.1.8 Heterometrus longimanus
0.0.8 Hottentotta judaicus
3.1.0 Mesobuthus martensii <-- very gravid
1.1.0 Pandinus cavimanus
1.0.4 Pandinus imperator
0.1.0 Parauroctonus boreus <-- Oregon native
0.2.0 Uroctonus mordax <-- Oregon native
1.2.0 Vaejovis spinigerus <-- very gravid

Most of my scorpions are actually on the middle and bottom shelves; the rest are my fiancee's tarantulas and our other "weird" bugs. I should mention that we breed five species of cockroach for feeders.

Welcome to my scorpion blog!

2008-05-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hi, whoever is reading this! As the name of this blog suggests, I'm Mike, and I keep scorpions. At the moment I have around 13 or 14 species with a total of around 60 specimens.

This blog is just a place to record my hobby for myself and whoever is interested.

If anyone reading this is on any invertebrate-related forums, my screenname is IHeartMantids on Arachnoboards, Venomlist, and ScorpionForum (the last of which I administrate on).