Emperor scorpion cannot open claw

i need advice.
My male is only about 3" long and appears that he cannot open his left claw, ever. whereas the right one is fine. i think he is coming up to a molt but dont know whether its due to this or whether its a disability. Any advice, would be grateful for it.

Moving this topic to the appropriate forum.

Don't have much experience there.

What's your setup like? As far as molting goes, if it's mature, it won't molt anymore. Is 3" the body alone or does that include the tail?

if its still a juvenile there may be a chance that its claw will recover, i know socrps cant recover a lost limb but ive never heard anything about them not being able to repair muscles damage.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6OqeAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=praearcturus+gigas&source=web&ots=ZRt-_kaqmU&sig=c651HsxwN6NKlTFkviB8wjroJqU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA15,M1

at the bottom of page 15 theres a section about muscles you could try reading that to see if there is any mention of the scorps being able to heal from crippled muscles.

I don't think moulting effects muscles. It might help a little, though..

here's hoping, if not they can get along fine without a working claw there was someone either on her or bug nation that had a scorp missin the whole of its pedipalp and still managed to catch food no problem.

Binksyboy3, have you tried maybe opening it yourself or trying to encourage him to open it?

Ive tried to get him to open it, but i havn't tried myself.
Im just a little worried coz ive got a female emp as well whom i think is gravid and they keep fighting then leaving each other alone and then fighting again. The problem is my male is gentle and doesn't attack her but she goes full out trying to get him. I have plenty of hides and i use coco fibre as the substrate with a bit of sphagnum moss on the top to retain moisture. He has been refusing food for about a week now whereas the female just eats and eats.

If she is gravid and she doesn't go flat again, how will i know when to feed her? Do i just feed her a cricket per week or something?

Thanks for the help

Also i would give one of them back to the shopkeeper if they keep fighting but i like them both a lot. My male is my favourite because he is calm and friendly. But i like my female a lot as well but she is quite vicious and probably gravid so im stuck there.

Thanks

Just separate them. Females are known to be aggressive towards tankmates when gravid.

Also, don't worry about your male not eating. Depending on the species, scorpions can fast for months up to over a year, and males tend to be more prone to this.

There's also the possibility that your male is calm and friendly and can't open his claw because he's old. Older scorps tend to slow down before they die. My first female emp was like this -- always much calmer and more handleable than my male, but she was slowly dying. (Don't panic yet, though; it took her over a year to die.)

My male is only 3" long though including the tail (curled)

Three inches curled could be a smaller adult. Which picture most closely resembles the color of his telson (the segment with the stinger)?

The second one. Same as my female. But it just seems weird that she can be gravid even though she is so small.

well, most Grammostola roseas (tarantula species) are moderately sized, I had one produce an eggsack and it was TINY.

what size are you expecting them to be? lol.

I heard that they grow to an average of 6" and can grow to as big as 8"

Mr.Mordax, does that mean that my scorpion is an adult then? or a juvenille?

are you counting the tail and pincers when you measure, or just the mesasoma?

the mesasoma and the tail (curled) but not the pincers

I think the correct measurement for scorps is from the tip of the carapace to the start of the tail. 3 inches seems about right..

seriously? I 've seen people on youtube with ones that are wider and much longer than mine. Unless of course the camera makes them look bigger. Look, here are two videos of their scorps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9v_HTrWPIc mine are very nearly two thirds of the size of those. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppgxt-6tc9E and these are 3-4 times the size of mine.

some are bigger than others.

if the telson is this colour;



then it's an adult.

Now this last one is a little bit bigger than mine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKC4hJy-bY

Both my male (smaller) and my female have that colour for the telson but i just didn't expect them to be so small. Thanks