Best Xmas present ever...

Sometime in August, I had a strange phone call from my dad asking me “what do scorpions eat?” Apparently he found a pair of H. longimanus scorplings in his warehouse in Bintulu, Sarawak. When we heard I was coming back to Kuching for Xmas, he sent them to me along with the critter keeper he had them in. He said he was busy to care for them any longer. Thanks dad, this is the best Xmas present ever. I’ve been looking to re-own some longimanus since I revived my hobby and learnt that they were indeed a different species from H. spinifer despite their almost indistinguishable appearance. Now I can do a comparative study on their natural history.


This will be their temporary home until I bring them back.



These are some pics of one of them night exploring




Merry Xmas guys and have yourself a blast of a holiday.

That's actually pretty awesome.

That's great dude.

Awesomeness!

The one on the left (first pic) doesn't look that much like my H. longimanus, though . . . but the one on the right sure does.

looks the ortherway around to me mate.. my H.longimanus have long fingers but slim glove..

wicked!

I never really got into hets before but now I have 3 species they are pretty cool. congrats on the additions

Kejser, I was also looking at the telson.

Yea, Apparently based on 1st hand observation, spinifer scorplings have a lighter shade of cream to their telson than longimanus; however, I wondered if this could be attributed to captivity i.e. captive raised scorps do not get a healthy variety of invertebrate prey etc.

In any case, I went to a best buddy's house just yesterday and we found a tiny longimanus scorpling - no bigger than 3rd instar. I think I got stung when I grabbed it but I didn't experience any significant effects (probably immune by now). That brings up my current longimanus count to 3 individuals.

More importantly I observed the same color characteristic on the telson which seems to have dirty streaks of brown in the case of longimanus. By contrast, all my captive hatched spinifers scorplings have a creamy, almost white telson.

Behaviorally, I am observing a somewhat consistent pattern of personality triats between the 2 species, sufficient grounds to make some basic generalizations.

Longimanus in general, are not as likely to raise and spread their chela towards you when disturbed. Their persistent reaction is to evade advances and escape. Only when they are grabbed by the metasoma do longimanus curl upwards to meet their attacker with their chela.

Spinifers however do not hesitate to react aggressively right from the 1st instance of provocation. You don't have to pick them up by the metasoma before they spread their pedipalps and try to clip you with a chela clap followed by an almost audible rattling hiss. Longimanus however do not customarily hiss in annoyance or at least I haven't met one that did lol.

I'm not advocating myself as some kind of expert so please if anyone has any contributive responses that is consistent or contrary to my observations, by all means feel free to share it with us all...

After all Xmas is coming soon. Sharing and kindness are virtues that wouldn't hurt humanity to have more of than not. Merry Xmas to you all at SF and may the seasons' joy resonate in our hearts for many years to come.

My H. longimanus scorplings have exhibited similar skittish behavior -- before they excavated a large burrow, whenever I removed the hide they all ran and hid elsewhere. The only "aggression" I saw was when a tankmate I was photographing was in the middle of molting. Sibling defense, perhaps?

I've never kept H. spinifer, but your description of their behavior is very similar to my deceased H. laoticus.

Interesting, I wonder if there are parallels to draw with regards to these behavioral differences in relation to the isolation of island habitats and fewer number of significant predators. Maybe longimanus did not adopted the aggressiveness exemplified in its mainland cousins.

I should mention, that my adult H. longimanus is somewhere in the middle -- she'll stridulate and raise her metasoma defensively, but doesn't "come after me" and tends to prefer hiding in her burrow. I'd say she has the temperament of an average emp.