Still under construction as I need sleepys :-)
Name: Euscorpius alpha
History: WC adult male and female from Lake Garda, Italy. Age unknown but both have been in captivity since September 2011. Female gave birth to a brood of 7 scorplings 10.02.2012.
Preperation/conditioning: Scorpions kept unheated with ambient room temperature ranging from 11c - 19c. Both were fed 1 appropriately sized cricket every 7 - 10 days (female was not fed when carrying young). Male refused most recent feeding on 7.10.2012.
Notes: The male was captured and transferred to the females enclosure. I released the male into the opposite side of the enclosure to where the female was hiding. The male wandered around the enclosure for around 2 - 3 minutes before discovering where the female was hidden. Once he had found where the female was he began twitching his metasoma and tapping his pectines on the substrate. I could not see what the female was doing as she was hidden under her bark hide. In my excitment I decide to remove the bark hide and unfortunately disturbed the scorpions. Both began to bolt around the enclosure. Bugger, not a great start lol.
Anyway, I replaced the hide and very quickly the female returned to it. After around 5 minutes the male settled down and started where he left off (before I disturbed them lol). He began the 'tail twitching' and tapping with his pectines again. I still couldn't see how the female was behaving but the male slowly made his way into the females hide until he was then obscured from view. After around 2 minutes I decided to very carefully lift the hide. This time I didn't disturb the scorpions and the male was grasping the females chelae with his. Result :-)
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