H. arizonensis tangent

Mr. Mordax wrote:

Ok guys, cool it down.

As for the original question, of the options listed, I'd suggest H. arizonensis as well. Large, not too large for a medium KK in my opinion, plenty feisty with prey, and not dangerous to humans.

Ras, do you have a citation for that lifespan of C. vittatus? I've never heard of barks living more than a few years.

I didn't mean to start it.

H. arizonensis is a burrower and, reaching lengths of 7", needs a decent amount of floorspace and a substrate deep and strong enough to make caverns - to give you an idea, my last one, Tubby, was kept in a 10gal with 4" of sand at about i4 and he made use of every inch of surface, sub-terra and anything I built for him to climb on. Tubby was where I developed my theory that H. arizonensis actually does have personality and have only put off further research for lack of funds over the past almost 4yrs since my ex and I split.

Damn, I just had a citation up - I'll dig it up again and post it, if anything I'll try and find more citations because I was scratching my head as I read it too (you know me, I have a tendency to end up with those things by the bucketload in the spring).

I had an adult H. arizonensis in a 2.5 gallon which is slightly smaller than a medium KK. It burrowed all the way to the bottom but made effective use of the tank. I'm sure it would have burrowed more given the space, but considering they'll burrow up to three feet in the wild, it wouldn't be practical to give it the opportunity to burrow to its fullest ability.

The difficulty in adding more burrowing room that I experienced is that the best substrate to support burrows is also quite heavy. My small tank had around 6" of substrate and was a pain in the butt to move; I can't imagine moving a 10-gallon with substrate that deep.

Yeah, it'd be a rare case for an H. arizonensis to reach 7 inches, 6 for that matter unless you're referring to emps. I've only dealt with ones getting to 3.5 inches, 5~ max. That may just be me and I bought them as adults too (females included). A medium kritter keeper will work for them (which is what my friend is doing at the moment), but a large kritter keeper will do nicely which is what I keep them in. I think that's almost 2.5 gallons? It's space efficient and makes it easy to feed. I'd recommend that species as well.

lol Mordax beat me to the punch, but yeah, he's definitely right about the weight. Sand is freaking heavy! Even better reason to have a smaller enclosure.

Rasputin wrote:

Mr. Mordax wrote:

Ras, do you have a citation for that lifespan of C. vittatus? I've never heard of barks living more than a few years.

Damn, I just had a citation up - I'll dig it up again and post it, if anything I'll try and find more citations because I was scratching my head as I read it too (you know me, I have a tendency to end up with those things by the bucketload in the spring).

I was reading the wrong screen....the screen I was looking at had mixed info for both tarantulas and scorpions. It's 7-9yrs for C. vittatus in captivity.

Mr. Mordax wrote:

I had an adult H. arizonensis in a 2.5 gallon which is slightly smaller than a medium KK. It burrowed all the way to the bottom but made effective use of the tank. I'm sure it would have burrowed more given the space, but considering they'll burrow up to three feet in the wild, it wouldn't be practical to give it the opportunity to burrow to its fullest ability.

The difficulty in adding more burrowing room that I experienced is that the best substrate to support burrows is also quite heavy. My small tank had around 6" of substrate and was a pain in the butt to move; I can't imagine moving a 10-gallon with substrate that deep.

That's why you don't move it. I still think that's too small and I will explain in the response to the quote below.

H. laoticus wrote:

Yeah, it'd be a rare case for an H. arizonensis to reach 7 inches, 6 for that matter unless you're referring to emps. I've only dealt with ones getting to 3.5 inches, 5~ max. That may just be me and I bought them as adults too (females included). A medium kritter keeper will work for them (which is what my friend is doing at the moment), but a large kritter keeper will do nicely which is what I keep them in. I think that's almost 2.5 gallons? It's space efficient and makes it easy to feed. I'd recommend that species as well.

lol Mordax beat me to the punch, but yeah, he's definitely right about the weight. Sand is freaking heavy! Even better reason to have a smaller enclosure.

If you ever wonder why your adult scorp that should be 7" is only 4" then maybe you should question the husbandry skills of the person who sold them to you (you following me Mike?), think of a bonsai tree - how do you get a tree that averages 50' in height to grow no more than 6" to 1', yeah, that's pretty sad. To further explain, take the enclosures (for those of you who were around to see the pix) that made up Judaicus Manor, they were 1"x1"x1.5" but whenever I rehoused to larger enclosures, it stimulated growth in my H. judaicus. Roll that around in your collective heads a bit, I find it to be pertinent to understand for proper husbandry.

Mike, can we move this tangent to it's own thread?

Ras, you make a good argument with the bonsai effect, but I'm not aware of more than one or two instances where this species has been reared in captivity -- and even then, I know of no reliable reports where they've been raised all the way to adulthood. As far as I know, all mature specimens in trade are WC adults.

The adult I have was WC by someone outside of Phoenix, and is less than four inches from mouthparts to telson. I'd estimate that it's closer to 3.5".

You sure it's an adult?

If there haven't been any documented to have been reared to adulthood then I will make it a point to be the first.

On that note, you should be making it very clear when you promote this species, how hard it is to rear them to adulthood because I'm sure an amateur will be highly disappointed when their H.a dies in less than a year because conditions didn't permit for them to molt and they were under the impression that their scorp was going to be with them through a few marriages, divorces and broods of human spawn.

I try to point it out whenever I see someone with what is clearly a juvenile.

I'm estimating it's an adult; I had one the exact same size that died of apparent old age, not having any premolt symptoms. And if it did die from molting complications, I'd expect it to molt first and then die.

I understand that enclosure space may stimulate better growth, but I bought it as an adult. The place I bought one from was Spider Pharm, they sell arachnid venom for medical research/purposes. Do you have any pics of specimens reaching the 6 or 7 inch mark? That would be amazing to see.

Edit: their place is located in Arizona and all specimens are wild caught.

H. laoticus wrote:

I understand that enclosure space may stimulate better growth, but I bought it as an adult. The place I bought one from was Spider Pharm, they sell arachnid venom for medical research/purposes. Do you have any pics of specimens reaching the 6 or 7 inch mark? That would be amazing to see.

Edit: their place is located in Arizona and all specimens are wild caught.

I think most of us are familiar with spider pharm, they've been around for a while.

I really hate to bump this up, but what is the "normal" price range for H. arizonensis ?

I'm simply wondering so I'll know if I get a good deal or not.

I think I paid $18 for my first one (USD).

The second one was free (a friend in Phoenix found it under her garbage can).

hey ras i see your point about the bansai tree. too bad i can't just put my mordax in that enclosure i showed you and have him get emp size haha.

As long as we're talking about tangents, I'm going to try creating a "super" mordax morph by selectively breeding my largest specimens.

haha imma call you Mendel then k?

LtLoquat wrote:

hey ras i see your point about the bansai tree. too bad i can't just put my mordax in that enclosure i showed you and have him get emp size haha.

Yeah, high hopes but Mike might come over and take it while you sleep to breed your super mordi with his midgets