Search results

Haven't had one fall into my lap yet, but they do show up in strange places. Back in the spring I opened the cupboard to get a dish, and there was ab S. heros sitting there. Another time my wife was going to mop the floor and one fell out of the mop. My favorite was early one morning when I...

No luck on the breeding. Only frustrations. I finally gave up, for this year at least. I'll put them together again in the fall, and towards spring. Maybe next year will be more successful. At least some of the not-quite-adults will be ready for breeding by then.

I've acquired two new Scolopendra heros (arizonensis) this past week - without intending to. The first one was on Saturday. I actually just intended to brush my teeth, but a fairly good sized S. heros suddenly appeared, running around on the bathroom floor. I quickly caught it, and suspected...

I use Gerber's chicken and gravy. I've noticed that some of my centipedes get spoiled, and will ignore crickets and hold out for baby food sometimes. I just put a little baby food in a bottle cap and leave it in the cage overnight. Some of my centipedes are relaxed enough that I can put the...

"Normal" for you is not normal for wild centipedes. Anything you feed them in captivity will be different than what they would normally feed on in the wild. It's mostly a matter of convenience for people, and partly a matter of not having a clue what they actually eat in nature. One of our...

Technically, out of KNOWN range. In the world of arthropods, range extensions are common. Doesn't mean they actually occur there, or that they occur there in strong enough population densities that he's likely to catch one - but it won't hurt to try. Especially since he's stuck there plus the...

The monsoons have started in the southern part of Arizona - got caught in a heavy downpour yesterday just south of Tucson. They'll be working their way north now. I've been seeing S. heros in small numbers around the house for the past couple months, and one S. polymorpha showed up in the...

Is there a particular reason you want to collect them in Colorado? As opposed to driving south to where they may be more common?

Very nice! My wife and I watched this one and the one with the funnel webs. We look forward to seeing more!

I still use the subspecies names as "morphotypes" - such as Scolopendra heros "arizonensis". It's still very useful. The decisions as to whether subspecies should or should not be recognized are pretty arbitrary and inconsistent, changing over time and from one animal group to another. For...

A few years ago there were some people who were going to do a study using DNA to evaluate the the various forms of S. heros, but I never saw any results published. It would be great if someone would take this on as a project and work up the cladistics.

Some of mine prefer it to crickets. If I put crickets in a cage and they're still there two days later, I offer baby food. It's common to find the baby food gone the next day and the cricket still there.

Gerber's Baby Food in a bottle cap from a gallon water bottle. I've heard speculation that a steady diet of crickets will turn the orange colors of a S. heros brown after a while, and I suspect that's true. But this guy has been in this cage for maybe two years, and a Critter Keeper for a...

Other than briefly keeping a couple of our local centipedes (S. heros), S. dehaani was my first. I'd had an extensive background with venomous reptiles, so I knew how to be careful around such animals, but I have to say that the centipede was easier than I'd anticipated. And it led to many...

There's never "only one correct way" to do anything, so with that in mind I'll offer another idea or two. As stated in comments above - don't pick it up. They are not aggressive, but will defend themselves very readily. And even if you get one calm enough to let you handle it, it might...

I have all of my larger centipedes in either Critter Keepers (12"x7"x8") or in 10 gallon aquariums. (The exception is a colony of S. mutilans in a 29 gallon long aquarium.) I've been doing this for years, and have maybe 3 dozen cages set up this way. I did have to make some adjustments in the...

I haven't caught a Scolopendra heros in my house since... day before yesterday. That is one of the advantages of living away from the nearest town, in the Sonoran Desert, at the end of a couple miles of dirt road. Lots of wildlife. I catch S. heros and S. polymorpha in my house a few times...

Looks like S. subspinipes to me.

Here's one of mine digging in to his Gerber's Chicken and Gravy:

Interesting. I have a ten gallon terrarium with several S. polymorpha in it, and that's one of the cages I also keep isopods in. The isopods seem to be doing well.