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.
Showing posts with label hunt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hunt. Show all posts
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
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."
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."
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Successful U. mordax Hunt
(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:
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:
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
West Texas Scorpions
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
My First "Wild-Caught"
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.
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.
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