my scorpion needs a prosthetic

So one of my emps came out of the burrow today and I noticed it was missing a leg. I can see a little piece of leg still attached to his body. It doesn't seem to be bothered by the loss. Should I be worried? Will it grow back? lol And this is off subject but I dug up all my emps after I noticed the missing leg. I wanted to see if the others were ok. And I noticed that their burrow was pretty extensive. I found them all over the 10gal tank. Do they dig tunnels or where I have 5 emps in a 10gal tank with one burrow did they just branch off to be alone?

They love to dig all over the place - to put it simply

It won't grow back I'm afraid, it might grow back a little if its a young instar but I'm assuming its an adult in which case it won't grow back at all.

No it's young. Not sure how old it is. I'm gonna say maybe 4th instar, again not sure. I also have an emp that should be molting soon. It's getting pretty fat. Should I separate it from the rest?

its debatable...
they might protect it from harm while its in post molt...

or they might eat it...
50/50 chance...
but i think theyll protect it if they all grew up together...

I just divided the tank and separated the adults from the 3 juvies. Was just gonna put the emp thats gonna molt soon in it or the prego female in the other side but I honestly can't tell which one is female. So for now I put them both in one side. Wow, got off topic, sorry. So the scorp with the missing leg, is there gonna be difficulties down the road?

not to my knowledge...
i have no experience with "handicapped" inverts, but as long as they have every requirement they need to live, the should be alright
=)

I had a female H.Paucidens with half a leg missing so it was a stump and completely disfunctional.
Made no complications though to the scorp, it could still hunt, climb, walk, run etc. So in that regard nothing to worry about.

i was told they grow back by my pet shop as my scorpian has a semi broken sting....it doesnt affect him but they said it will reset in the next malt...but i dont have a clue when that will be

Either way I'm not too worried. It doesn't seem to bother him. I still have no idea how he lost it since he had all his legs when I bough him but we'll see what happens with him

the_oracle_jennie wrote:

i was told they grow back by my pet shop as my scorpian has a semi broken sting....it doesnt affect him but they said it will reset in the next malt...but i dont have a clue when that will be

what color is the ball on the stinger?

Depends on how old the scorp is.

Also, one molt won't regrow an entire limb - they therefore have to be young to stand a chance of regrowing it.

Just curious, but which leg is missing?

The leg won't grow back, the next molt will only cap it off. The strange thing is that some other inverts are able to regrow limbs unlike scorpions. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say why that is, though.
I wouldn't worry about it hindering its survival though.
There was a member with a scorpion that lost both of its front arms and it was still doing fine by being hand-fed.

The ball on the tail is yellowish. The leg that is missing is 2nd or 3rd one back on the right side.