Another emp fighting question

I recently bought another emp for my lonely female.... at first they got along fine... later i notice them almost fightning... i would see 1 of the emps shiver... so i thought they just got mad... then later i kept noticing they kept doing that.. i will feed them by throwing a couple of crickets in the tank and the male would grab like 3 crickets and stuff them in his mouth and wouldnt let the female get a chance to get one... sometimes when the female has one the male will steal from her claws.... they would stay in the same hide even though they have more hides... at this moment i have them separated so i can feed them indivisualy... i was try to make them mate but it seems like they are alawys fightning

Split from the other thread.


The "shaking" is called juddering, it's part of courtship. It means your scorpions were horny. :sex:

It takes a long, long time for a scorpion to starve to death, so don't panic if the male stuffs his face and the female doesn't eat. Also don't panic if one of your scorps (especially your male) stops eating and refuses food for no apparent reason -- that's normal.

Emps are also a fairly communal species, so it's normal for them all to share the same hide.

And finally, mating DOES look like fighting to the untrained eye. The male grabs the female by the pinchers, they dance back and forth, possibly tail-clubbing each other, and the male may even sting the female.

If you want to increase the success of any mating, make sure there's something solid in the tank for the male to anchor his spermatophore to. A stick, a piece of bark, a piece of rock (slate is ideal for this), etc.

I dont think juddering is strictly a courtship thing....I watch my babies do it all the time and I dont think they are planing on courting anytime soon seeing as they are only 3I's =o)

If you want to see exactly what mating looks like heres a 10 min vid I made of my male and female....

I recently added another Heterometrus sp. into a tank and the two fought each other. The slightly bigger one juddered not for mating purposes, but I think territory and possibly dominance. After a while, they were both cool w/ each other and are now sharing the same hide

Maybe it's also a way they get used to each other ? Like maybe juddering can also be like introducing themselves to one another like shaking hands lol.
Sorry just a dumb theory.

Like how dogs sniff each others' butts?

*Connie* wrote:

I agree about the juddering. I think a certain method of juddering is for mating, while another is for "back off" warnings (such as seen with scorplings fighting over food)

After what I've seen with my scorpions, I would say the same thing. No reason to separate the two. With the first two emps I had the biggest one would do this juddering thing when they were a bit stressed and they could get into a short scuffle (keeping condition weren't the best and I often had ppl over in my small flat that wanted to see them. I was a n00b, but learned from my mistakes). With the ones a have now (they are all family), I have only seen this juddering once. It was after I put them back in the tank after cleening it and redecorating a bit. One of them juddered, one seemed to respond by a little juddering, and the first one kept juddering a bit, walk a little, juddered some more and about a minute or two after all was good and they worked together to make a new burrow.