Selective breeding?

I'm not sure whether this is the right subforum, but this isn't exactly a breeding report... so my best guess would be to place it over here.

It might be an ignorant question, but I was merely wondering: would it be possible to breed selectively with scorpions? By that I mean that I would choose the specimens with the "best" characteristics (i.e. the most docile ones, the ones with the most beautiful patterns, the biggest ones, etc.), and let those mate. From their young I would again choose the ones with the preferred characteristics, mate them, and so on.

Would this be possible with scorpions, or am I just talking nonsense now? I'm going to start a "colony" with ten Euscorpius italicus once I get them from a friend, so I was curious if I could breed them to develop certain traits. Maybe I could give it a try, and keep you guys updated on my findings! I just wanted to know if anyone has ever tried this before, haha!

Since natural, sexual, and kin selection can.drive the evolution of any species, then presumably artificial selection can as well. We see it done all the time, and there is no reason to suspect we cannot selectively breed arthropods as well.

As above, but given how my numerous E. italicus have pretty much no variation between them there will be few 'characteristics' to select from. Size is probably the only easily observable difference and even that is only minor. E. italicus collected from different locales (some are subspecies I think) do have some slight variation, such as colouration, from what I have seen but nothing that I think would be interesting enough to cross and breed true etc. But you can't go muddying the purity of them anyway   

I don't think much (or any) selective breeding goes on with scorpions because there isn't a lot of variation within species/subspecies. Certainly nothing like you see with many reptiles, for instance. However, if I was going to have a go at selectively breeding scorpions I think I'd chose a species with more patterning and/or brighter colouration so that any variation would be more obvious, and interesting. Also, I'd look at species that have faster gestation times and growth rates so you get any results far quicker.

My friend and I typically breed largest specimen of the brood together and keep those back. As a result, his B. jacksoni 2i scorplings are noticably larger than the ones you normally find running around.