New Scorpions, Update on breeding plans, and a question regarding Bothriurus Dumayi

Alright, so I have my collection of scorpions officially off the ground. I have 7 scorpions: 3 P. Imperators, 2 adult P. Cavimanus of opposite sexes, and 2 Bothriurus Dumayi.

My Emperors are doing well. Not eating more than once or twice a week but I am aware that is a good thing. They do well together. I believe the small one is male, and I hope the larger ones are female. They aren't as "aggresive" even though the little one isn't aggressive as is. But when you tick him off he does this little angry dance. It's hysterically cute. So the larger "females" are named Morgana and Morgose at this time, and the small "male" is Mordred for the time being. We will see how accurate my predictions are regarding their sexes.

My two Red Claws are settling in well it seems. The female is a total B-word (named her Bellatrix). She'll attack the very moss she's hiding in if you so much as move it. I thought the males were suppose to be the mean ones, lol. He's fiesty when disturbed but not near as much as Bellatrix (Male's name is Hikaru). Hikaru has eaten quite a bit but Bellatrix never finishes what she starts eating. So maybe she was well fed before delivery? Anyhow, I am going to attempt breeding them tonight. I will observe how they react to eachother, and if all goes well, I will keep them together until they mate. I will try to document as much as I can via pen and paper and also my cam-corder.


Now for my Bothriurus. I need to rip through your brains for as much info as you can possibly give me regarding their care and their growth. As I said, I have two Dumayi's (I will post pictures and videos of all my scorpions sometime in the near future). I have spent hours trying to research their natural habitat and I don't know how successful I am getting at obtaining useful information yet.

Here are my questions. First and foremost, How big do they get? They are only slightly bigger than my infantile Emperors. I watched a video about someone's adult Bothriurus sp. and it looked about the same size as my Dumayi's. So are my dumayi's babies or are they just very small as adults?? They don't look adult. THough they are absolutely beautiful either way. If they are mature I will attempt to mate them. They are doing quite well so far and both devoured large crickets. They seem fairly mild tempered, even if they are a bit skittish.

Next, what do you all know about their care and keeping?? I am trying to hard to make sure I do the best I can for them. I want to know how many of you keep them successfully, and what you do for their temperature, substrate, etc. EVERYthing you can tell me would be appreciated. They are so beautiful, I would be crushed if I were to lose them. I'd be crushed to lose ANY of my scorpions.


Hope to get many replies. I love scorpio discussions. XD (says the Aries)

its easy to determine the sex of the emperors....

just put them in a clear deli container and look at the oval thing by there pectines....

males will be oval and females will be heart shaped

i will be looking forward to the videos

you picked out good names and good choice of scorpions

goodluck

I am aware of how to sex. lol. As I stated they are infantile. Too hard to tell. Thanks though.

im sure someone else more experienced will come along and answer your questions, sorry i cant be more help

No prob

http://research.amnh.org/users/lorenzo/PDF/Mattoni.2007.ISE.Bothriurus.pdf
This is a paper on them.

All I found
http://research.amnh.org/users/lorenzo/PDF/Mattoni.2007.ISE.Bothriurus.pdf

Unless I skimmed over it, I did not see anything on the Dumayi. Would I care for Dumayi the same as other Bothriurus species? I've heard a bit about certain desert hills on which they are found as being abnormal compared to most other bothriurus habitats, due to periodical mist moisture.

Do a search here and there is some more info about keeping them.

https://scorpionforum.darkbb.com/t6739-bothriurus-sp-care?highlight=Bothriurus+Dumay

Thanks for your help, all ^_^

i cant seem to find anything in english about them.....

you could possibly send ken the bug guy an email......

not sure if he knows caresheets on every scorpion he has but its worth a try...

i googled the species and found the same as the two links above

I may email him about it sometime in the oncoming week. I've already Bugged him enough about information on the current ages/instars of all my scorpions, etc. ( pun intended, lol)

I Was beat to it lol

well this idea might be a little out there, but i think that link had a map and showed where the species came from......

i think it was south america, towards the bottom

you could go on a weather website and find out if that area of the world is humid or dry.....

i did that before with my emps i looked up west africas humidity levels.

http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/humidity_south_america.html

That's a good idea!

exept for that one dry spot

looks to me like medium humidity like 70%

I'll try that. Thank you for the tip.

In regards to B. dumayi, cool (low - mid 20c's daytime and allowed to drop to pretty low temps at night, it will sometimes freeze at night in their natural range), dry (sporadic light misting, generally the only moisture available to this species in the wild is from occasional sea fog) and a substrate that allows them to burrow.

There is basically no reliable info. on this species out there, other than searching out papers and finding out where they are from. You can then use this information to find out what the climate/ecology/geography/altitude etc. of their range is and try to recreate it as best as possible.

This is how I came up with the above method of caring for them, plus other Chilean species and it has so far been successful.

Thank you so much for the information. I will correct what needs to be corrected. How do you keep their substrate? Do you just use sand? Just Exo Terra? Or a combo?

No worries.

The substrate is a sand, soil and excavator clay mix (roughly 40/30/30). Sand and soil makes a 'pretty', naturalistic substrate and the excavator clay holds it all together.

hmmm.... I'll look into where I can get the clay. Do i leave it loosely mixed or should I compact it fairly well?

Zoo Med Excavator Clay, it should be available over the net or from reptile/pet shops.

Wet the mix, compact it and leave to dry out completely. It helps if you have a spare lamp to speed the drying out up.

Will do, you've helped greatly, thank you!