4 years old,.. how big ?

[Steven]

Hey,...

i've bought 2 vinegaroons today at the fair,... awsome intresting creatures!!!
now i wanna ask you US M.Giganteus experts,...
how big should a vinegaroon be if it's from 2000 ? 4 years old ? the dealer claimed that they were CB,...

and at which stage can you see if it's a female or male :?

allready got some nice litle ones a while back and now these 2 and i want MORE :}

they even come close to my intrest as centipedes

 

[Goliath]

gongyles,
They grow rather slow, so four year olds I would say should be about 1 to 1 1/2 inches excluding the palps and the 3 whips. They can take up to 10 years to reach maturity. My mature male and female are just about 2 1/4 inches in body length, excluding whips and palps. The most obvious way to sex them is to see the difference in palp size, at 4 year old size they should show some difference in palp size, which will only get more noticable. Since they are said to be CB, they may bigger and have a slightly faster growth rate than wild populations, due to the availability of food.

I know what you mean about being interesting, I love mine, they are just so cool. They are always interesting to watch, right up there with my tailless whips.

Mike

 

[Melmoth]

Hey,...



allready got some nice litle ones a while back and now these 2 and i want MORE :}

they even come close to my intrest as centipedes

If they come close to your love of pedes,Steven,they MUST be interesting creatures!
George

 

[Steven]

Thanx for the info,..

like you both said,..they are really neat pets!!!!

and they are now about 6-5cm bodysize,.. so what Goliath said about growing faster in captivity makes sence !!! now i think the dealer wasn't a liar,..and these are indeed CB born 2000

i really hope to get my hands on some more of these,... maybe some azian species soon :}

Cheers

 

[Goliath]

At that size there will be a dramatic difference in the palp size, males have the larger palps. I posted pics not too long ago that show the difference between males and females.

Mike

 

[Steven]

At that size there will be a dramatic difference in the palp size, males have the larger palps. I posted pics not too long ago that show the difference between males and females.

Mike

i'll have to use the "search" button then,... i know they are many treads about sexing vinegaroons,.... i'll try posting the 2 i have next to eachother to compare

thanx Mike

 

[Steven]

i've taken a good look at their palp-size,... and if i'm not blind or mislead by enthousiasme it looks like i've made a good buy seems like male and female i'll post pix next week to be sure !!!

anyway,... 1 more question,... can you overfeed your vinegaroon ?
seems like they are just eating machines,... d*mn what an appetite

 

[Wade]

I havn't found palp size to be an especially reliable method of sexing them, but it is a good way to make an educated guess. Sometimes a "pair" may simply be two vinegaroons of the same sex at different instars.

There is a better way to sex them by examining the underside. There was a thread on this where it was explained it pretty well, but I couldn't locate the damned thing using the search function, so I can't even give credit to the member who first described it here!

Anyway, look at the underside of the abdomen. On a male, the first or second (don't have one here at work to check) sternite (counting front to back) is elongated and comes to a point (pointed towards the rear). The edge even overlaps one or two of the following sternites. On the female, you don't see this elongation and overlapping. After learning this, I checked mine at home and discovered that it even works on very small individuals.

Wade

Edit:

OK, I went back and searched again manually (by scrolling back through all the old threads) because I was determined to find this thread! I think it didn't come up in the search because "vinegaroon" was mispelled in the title! Anyway here it is:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=17824

Credit goes to Jeremy Huff for sharing this with us.

Wade

 

[Steven]

THANK YOU very much Wade !!!

i was also on the search for that tread and couldn't find it either

 

[Goliath]

Wade,

Thank you for finding that thread, that was the one I was looking for too. That is the most reliable way to sex them, and I agree that sexing by palps is only an educated guess. It really is not even possible to see a difference in palps size (where sometimes there is none) until they are 1/2 to 3/4 grown. When fully mature it is a better educated guess than when they are still immature though. Palp size can be useful when trying to sex them quickly, but looking at the sternites is still the most accurate way. Thanks.

Steven,

Glad to hear they are doing well. They are eating machines, I have limited mine to 2 to 3 large crickets a week. If mine are full they leave the crickets alone that are in the cage, till I take the crickets out. Like pedes, they will stop when they are full. They do put weight on quick, and tend to keep that weight on for a long time, so that is why I have limited what I feed them.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Steven]

I've been looking at the underside of both,... look exactually the same,...
better luck next time

anyway,... some pictures

thought i give it a try,...
very easy-going inverts compared to scolopendra's

 

[gphx]

Hello Steven,

It is generally just about impossible to say how big an invert 'should' be at a given age. Factors such as temperature, rate of feeding, injury, etc. can enhance or retard growth manyfold. In short, your vinegaroons will be as big as the conditions they were kept under will allow them to be.

Cheers.

 

[Goliath]

Very nice pictures, and yes they are much nicer to handle than pedes.

Mike

 

[Steven]

Very nice pictures, and yes they are much nicer to handle than pedes.

Mike

yep,.. these are cute puppy's compared to my other invert-pets

 

[Bob]

Glad to here you finally got some Steven !



Bob

 

[Steven]

Glad to here you finally got some Steven !
Bob

THANX Bob,... guess you're the only one who knows how long i'm searching for these

 

[Steven]

today i've tried to feed them "locusta's", bigger then their own bodysize,...

no probs for these guys,... didn't have to wait a sec,.. before they grabbed them and started to munch on the big hoppers :} :} :}

jeeeeez where have these been all my life



Cheers

 

[Goliath]

In the summer up here we get carolina locusts, and large katydids and mine love both. Mine really like larger prey, my adults really don't touch anything smaller than winged crickets. It is really fun to watch them hunt, they are cool inverts.

Mike