Heterometrus longimanus molting

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"

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

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

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!

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).