Scorpion ill?

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum and not sure how everything works yet. I hope you will be able to advise me on the following; I have a female Parabuthus transvaalicus and it seems that she has some problem on her tail where the anal opening is – it might be that it is fecal matter that is stuck or something else. She did have some scorplings a while back so not sure if that could be part of the problem by affecting her overall health. She did not want to eat last night but I have been feeding her crickets every time but I did not have any left last night so I offered a roach that I also keep. She actually seemed a bit unsure of what to make of the roach though, she lifted her pincers and then touched him in a unsure way. She is active, if you open the enclosure she is responsive, walking around and she is drinking water. It is also nearly winter here. I only had her for a little while so I am really not sure if all is well or not. I rehomed her recently but she seemed at home from the start she started digging first thing.

Hi welcome to the forum, i dont really know what your saying the problem is with her exactly? do you have pics? if it is just some chalky white stuff stuck there i would say shes fine and its just poop

Might be my best bet too, but indeed try to post a picture!

Hi, I am struggling to get a pic loaded, I will try to do it via Photobucket. She does not want to eat and she is lethargic. But it is winter so it might be why she does not move that much. My brother says it seems as if the anal opening has fecal matter that hardened and she cannot do her "business". I dropped a few drops of water on her tail and it seems that it might have helped a bit because there is some chalky residue on her tail. Before I got her she was kept on too wet substrate by her former owner. I am worried sick actually. She is responsive when you open the enclosure and likes to lie on the part of the enclosure where the heatpad is.

As far as I remember on Parabuthus species is that they are not really prone to mycosis, so having it had a bit to the moist side is not that bad if there are no dark spots on it now.

It sure doesnt have lasting effects otherwise than that. So I wouldnt worry about that, keep her at 50% relative humidity now.

Since you live in Africa, where the animals naturally are, I guess your temperature ranges should be ok?! Around 30 degrees Celsius at day, have a nasty temp drop at night.

Make sure they can burrow! Can make them behave strange if they can't. They are nasty burrowers if memory serves me right. A happy scorpion is a scorpion you almost cannot see! Get at least 4 inch of substrate.

Also, if you fed her too much and she is like a golfball on legs then she goes in 'eating sleep' mode. Lethargic. Getting more active again, when more food stored in her body is eaten. Only you know what she ate before. I dont feed my scorpions past the point where their tergites and sternites get too far apart and too much intersegmental membrane can be seen. As far as I know they cannot die from too much food, but it sure makes them 'slow'.

As you already said yourself, during winter they can become less active too, obviously.

I dont believe their digestive channel can and will ever get blocked, maybe of eating too much sand but then some, I never heard of it.

As said already, post a picture to see if she is fat or not.. if she looks healthy dont stress her out too much by poking her or whatever.

She will likely act normal after winter and/or digesting her food completely. Up the temperature a bit if you are really worried and want to see some improvement soon (she will likely eat more if you are worried about that).

Crawling next to the heat mat suggests she likes it hotter. Being winter, if I were you, I would just let nature go through the normal temperature drop together with her, making her feel all ready for the summer when it arrives!

Hope she goes into normal mode soon. THat being said, I only have andros.. so they might be slightly different! I keep mine almost bonedry with only a bottlecap always filled with water. This evaporates, but doenst cause a 10+% added humidity. Only barely noticeable.

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I tried to resize the pic, I am sorry if it is too big, it seems to "resize" on photobucket but when I try to post it it is soooo large. But yes, your advice makes perfect sense Pluto. It makes me feel better because I started to feel really bad about her being like that. I am really trying my best to look after my little girl. I do not like to upset her, during the day she hides and that to me means she does not want to be disturbed I am still learning and I do not want to make a mistake that might hurt her. It has been raining here off and on and we rarely have rain during winter in South Africa so at night it is extremely cold.
I have a gut feeling that she will be okay if I just let her do what she wants but my bro made me so nervous by telling me there is something wrong that I was doubting myself.

Hello Evab,

Try to get it bigger, i cannot see anything from that picture, sorry. What I can see is that its not only the last segment that is smothered in poo, or is it a reflection or something?


The girl is looking fat nonetheless