Freckles1988 wrote:
''Hi I am a student interested in the behavior of desert scorpions looking for more to study. The study is observational and I have good homes for them after also (a university lecturer of mine is an enthusiast of all pets unusual!) I am having difficulty finding stockists and I stumbled across this forum as people have been breeding so I thought maybe a private stockist might be the way to go.
Ideally I would like to have five or six, and the closer to Bristol you are located the better. Additionally, as the stockist, if you are interested in our study I would be delighted to invite you to the University of Bristol for a tour.
Many thank yous for reading.''
Hello and welcome to the forum.
Scorpio maurus have proved to be very difficult to breed and raise in captivity. Here in the UK, where the keeping of scorpions as a hobby is pretty much non-existant, I highly doubt you'd be able to source CB S. maurus. You'd probably find that even in Germany, where scorpion keeping is huge, you'd not be able to source CB animals of this species.
They are however, readily available as wild caught sub-adults and adults. They're harvested en masse from Egypt every year. This is also probably part of the reason why so few have attempted breeding this species, as they're so readily available as WC animals. Why bother spending a lot of time, money and effort breeding something that you can buy as an adult for between £10 and £20? This isn't something that I think is a good thing by the way.
Anyway, I'm rambling lol. Annoyingly I think you have missed out on most of this years shipment of S. maurus as all of the major invert suppliers have sold out. Coast to Coast have some in stock by the looks of it. I've never bought from them before, but they have a very good reputation when it comes to reptiles. They will also ship the scorpions to you. Darlington would be a long round trip for a few scorpions lol. Here is the link http://www.coasttocoast.co.uk/spiderandinvertsinstock.html
Here is a link to one of the better caresheets on the species http://www.schorpioenenforum.nl/index.php?topic=151.0
It goes into the importance of moisture and seasons when raising this species. Even as adults they tend not to last very long in captivity +/- 6 months seems to be the norm.
Now can I be nosey lol? What is the study you are doing and how come you chose S. maurus??