Breeding Paruroctonus boreus?

Hi there!

Last Saturday my first attempt to get my Paruroctonus boreus to mate failed. They just skittered around the "mating enclosure" that I had prepared. After reading an article on chemical responses among these scorpions, I decided to put the female in first, followed by the male an hour later.

They ran around for a while, and when they first met, it seemed to go well. The male grabbed the pedipalps of the female, but then they both ran away in different directions. Their reactions when they met afterwards varied from fear (running away) to slight aggression (going into a defensive stance when they surprised each other).

I was just wondering: could it just be that they didn't feel like mating that night? I'm planning on trying again next Saturday, but this time I will introduce the male to the female enclosure, after making sure they're both well fed.

Any other ideas to encourage mating? I'm keeping them at about 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day, letting it drop to about 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Their substrate consists of red sand that I moistened and allowed to dry out, with plenty of flat rocks for them to hide underneath. I provided them with a very small water dish filled with gravel to prevent drowning. They were caught in the state of Utah by a contact of my supplier in the Netherlands.

Any advice would be more than welcome!

If the female is a wild caught adult them she could already be gravid, and so not be interested in mating.

They may have got stage fright doing it in front of you. Haha not really, but if you stuck around to watch what happened, then that could have been enough disturbance to put them off mating. Are you prepared to leave them in together for a night or even a few days?

Many scorpions will get straight to it after being introduced, but others can be more tricky. I know very little about this species, however they come from an area that is hot during the summer but pretty cold in the winter. Giving them seasonal cues, such as 'hibernating' them during the winter could induce mating next year. I'd probably do this anyway given where this species originates from.

Anyway, I'd at least try what you were planning to do. If this species isn't renowned for being cannibalistic and there's no real aggression between the two then I'd also try leaving them together overnight. There is always a risk with doing this, though. And, if nothing comes of it, either the female is already pregnant (or even not mature yet. Possible??), or you need to try something else, such as giving them seasonal cues.

Thanks for your advice!

Well.. as far as I can see, she isn't showing any signs of being gravid yet, and judging by the colour of their telson, they both seem to be adults.

I did watch them nearly the entire night though, hahaha! Might be stage fright after all Next time I'll just check on them every hour, or from a distance. They're on a hanging shelf, so my vibrations shouldn't really disturb them, unless I breathe on their enclosures.

Leaving them together for a longer time seems like a bad idea, because their feeding response is quite aggressive, and from what I've read, they're quite a cannibalistic species. That, and I don't know how many my seller has left, so I wouldn't like to waste the male. If this goes right, I'll be the first one in Europe to breed this species (at least, I've not seen any other Europeans selling them).

So, if every attempt from now on fails, I'll let them hibernate during the winter It will be my last resort, because I don't know their exact age... and I would prefer to let them mate as soon as possible, before one of them dies of old age.

Again, thanks for the advice!

Just a little last question: wouldn't it be possible to "speed up" the seasons a bit? Like, letting every season last about a month? Or wouldn't they be fooled by that?

I doubt they'd be fooled by changing the seasons every month. It would probably end up being detrimental to them in the end.

However, where this species may be inactive/'hibernating' for say 4, 5, 6 months of the year in the wild, because of the local weather conditions, lack of food etc., in captivity a cooling of a month or two would probably work. It works for many reptiles, anyway.