Some days I love this hobby . . .

I hadn't done the rounds in a while, so yesterday I went through and checked on everybody in my collection. (Today I'll start on Lori's and the visiting collection.)

I offered my gigantic Heterometrus a large cockroach (she's easily taken down adult B. fusca) and she readily attacked, but missed and hit the forceps. The roach got away down her burrow. I figured her pinch to the forceps was enough to tell me she was hungry, so I got another roach out . . . I'll spare you the gory details, but there were lots of crunching noises. Then I noticed the other roach starting to come back out of the burrow. I turned around to attend to something and by the time I looked back she had one in her chela and one in her mouth (with the antennae still wiggling!).

She then retired to her burrow, I put her hide back, and refilled the false-bottom. Fun times.

The other awesome thing that happened last night . . . I checked on the communal U. mordax tank and saw that at least one of my females was quite . . . pudgy. When I offered her prey and she stung, I thought I could see embryos through her tergites. Then an hour or so later, I saw a female resting against the glass with embryos CLEARLY visible! She didn't have prey, either, so it's possible both of my females are gravid.

The only problem is I don't know if this is my female that had the brood last summer or one of the recent WCs. It would be cool to know if there was mating going on in my tank.

pretty cool.

good luck with the mordax, hope you get good babies.

send me some! heheheheee

I will when you guys send me some Euscorpis!

If I ever get a hold of any Euscorps I'll never let go.. unless they have kids lol. mordax look like sweet little scorps. you seem to like them anyway lol!

I'm tellin' ya, they're Oregon's answer to emperors! The young even seem more eager for food than some of my Buthid slings.

Nice one! Good luck with them. I hope they are indeed breeding in your tank

Some days I love you.

AshMashMash wrote:

I hope they are indeed breeding in your tank

Me too! I should look for a spermatophore, but it's probably too small to notice.

Venom wrote:

Some days I love you.

That is so awesome! I hope you get a ton of them! Tell me again what species is in southern Idaho. I was trying to remember and couldn't for the life of me remember what you said.

I had my third successful molt to 4i...5 more to go and now 3 or so are getting plump!

Probably P. boreus you're thinking of.

I hope I get a ton, too! The last brood had 26, all making it to 2I. From what I learned about that brood, I bet I can get a survival rate in the 75 to 80 percent range with the next set (the last brood had only about 30% survive to third instar -- I learned that 2I aren't very communal and that I shouldn't give them away until they hit 3I).