Iurus dufoureius asiaticus

Hi, well I have just received an email from Martin at Bugzuk and he's had a shipment of Iuridae species in from Turkey. After looking through a few books I have come to the conclusion that it's probably Iurus dufoureius asiaticus which is pretty rare in the hobby, hence the pretty high asking price (£35 for a subadult). I couldn't resist though and have managed to scrape enough money together for one lol.
Anyway, I have been scouring the internet and books for as much information on them as I can. So far I have found that they prefer to live in hot, semi-damp areas such as in heavily wooded areas with soil substrate that holds some moisture. From this I figure keeping them on a sand and coco fibre mix (30%sand/70%coco fibre) substrate with a few pieces of bark and rock to use as hides will replicate their natural environment. Spray the enclosure weekly and keep the substrate damp under one of the hides will get the desired humidity? Keep the temp. in the high 20c's. I have read they can be found in high density colonys in some areas but I am unsure whther this means they can be kept communally.

Any hooo, how does this sound to anyone thats kept this species and does anybody have any other tips or pointers about this species?

Cheers, Callum

Sound good.
I keep mine in 50/50 sand/cocofiber at room temperature. There's some pictures of my setup in the pics/videos section. I don't spray, I just overfill the watercup and let it flow down to the substrate.

As long as you replicate its natural environment you're good I'd be too chicken to keep it communally with their price tag lol

It's not worth the risk IMO. Unless you get an adult pair and want to breed them. I think LadyRiotControl used to keep these, but I don't know if she's still around.

We are interested in these too can I ask how you came
To the conclusion that they are Iurus dufoureius ?

Cheers for the replies guys. Dolby, when you say room temperature what is the temp. of your room? My bedroom where I keep my scorps is quite cool (generally under 20c) so I use heat mats for all my scorps including my E. italicus.
Hi Bex, from what I could find there arent many species in the Iuridae family that are ever exported from Turkey except Iurus dufoureius asiaticus and even these are rarely seen for sale so I am presuming that is what they are lol. If they aren't then even better lol. Maybe they will be a Calchas sp. which I have never seen available lol.

Generally around 25, drops to maybe 20 or under at night. Lately I have him close to my other tanks though which have one heatlamp 24/7, so I would say now he's at around 25 24/7.

I think I read somewhere that they don't like temps much over 25c though.

Cheers Dolby. I have got an old heat mat that still gives out abit of heat so if i stick this to the side of the enclosure it should bump it up to the low 20c's.

That sounds good.

A little offtopic.. what ize enclosures/heatmats do you have and what temps do you get? I´ve been considering getting some for my emp and my AFS´s just worried they won´t get the heat high enough.

For my one remaining female emp i have her in a L 16 x H 12 x W 10 (inches) glass tank. The lid is made of perspex with a 1 inch x 16inch area of fine mesh for ventilation. I use a heat mat that covers the length of the back of the tank. This keeps the temps at the mat side between 27c - 31c and on the 'cool' side around 23c - 26c. Temperatures in my enclosures vary quite a lot as my bedroom relies on the great British weather to heat it for most of the year lol (my family like to avoid using the central heating lol) so the air temp. of my room can be anything from 13c - 22c lol.

Thanks mate-

That´s just the same size I keep my Heterometrus Laoticus in, its bit small for them though, so my emp will go there as soon as I get a bigger one for the hets.

Probably something like the zoomed 8"x12" (16w) could be enough then. My room temperature is not much different than yours, it can easily drop to 12c in the winter, though it can get over 30c in the summer too. All my heating is done with an inverter A/C so it depends a lot as its never on 24/7.

Have just been on the Bugzuk site and a pic of the Iuridae sp. Turkey has been put up and it looks like it is I. dufoureius. My wallet is now lighter but I am pretty excited for it's arrival next week lol.

Guyz, i think that if we have the opportunit we have to regulate our scorps temperature and keep the seasons...for example we cant have all year long the E. Italicus at 25-27c becaus the temperature on winter fall at 15 or lower so in my opinion we dont have to heat em on winter basically the species from europe where we can easily regulate the season temperatus..

P.S. My english are bad if you want me to specify something let me know

I agree. As i said above my bedroom is mostly unheated so temperatures fluctuate with the seasons. In winter my bedroom is freezing lol. This also effects the temperatures in my enclosures, so they do get some seasonal variation.
I think it's more important that you replicate this with scorpions that originate further from the equator (such as European scorpions) as they obviously have greater changes in temperature through the seasons. With scorpions such as Emperors I think this is less important as they are found on/near the equator where temperatures do not vary greatly through the seasons. However humidity levels could be increased/ decreased throught the year to replicate the dry and wet seasons in the countries they originate from.

Your English is fine by the way