A.Australis(tunisia)hector&typical mating

[louis1618]

hey guys,
i have a A.Australis (tunisia) male and 3 female A.Australis hector (tunisia) .dont think i will find a male hector any time soon.i was thinking of just mating one.dont know what will happen like will some look like the hector ? or like a mix?will they breed?
and am also thinking of not doing it just so they would be pure hector not mut babies lol
just would like some opinions thanks
ps.2 female are 7i one 6i

 

[AzJohn]

I imagine they would mate and I'd bet they would produce a good brood. Now if it's a good idea to do so is a different question. I'm not sure on whether or not A a. Hector is a subspecies or just a locality. If it's a subspecies I wouldn't do it. You'd have a bunch of hybrid babies. What would you do with them then? Personally I'd try to get a pair of A a. hector. If you could manage that I'm sure you'd have a very desirable group of babies. I'd really like to see A a. hector would be awesome to get in the US hobby. I'd either try and get a girl or move your boy to someone witha female.

 

[lancej]

Isn't the "hector" just a color phase? Or is it a specific geographical variation? If it's locality specific, I would advise against mixing(it would create a "mutt" that wouldn't exist in the wild population). But if it's just a color phase (recessive gene) that's found in all the localities in Tunisia, then I would say go for it (better to get "hets" than no offspring at all). These are the questions that I would get the answers to, and then base my descision on that. As far as them actually breeding, I don't see why they wouldn't if they are the same species. I'm not too familiar with all the different strains of each species of Androctonus. When I kept them in the late 90's, there wasn't much info on them that I could find. The dealers just listed them as bicolor and australis. Good luck!


edit: I'm a slow typer, and it looks like AzJohn beat me to it.

 

[louis1618]

hey azjohn,thanks for your input. dont know morph really means? but i know in the snake hobby they mix morphs like crazy.i know ppl dont do that with scorpions .never cared to do that but , just curious .and i do have a female for my male but shes a baby 6i . am leaning not to do it but , cant stop thinking that it would be ok.because they are both from tunisia ,am guessing they mate alot in the wild.i seen lots of pix of A.Australis and seems like they are more morphs than the 3 which i have all =D

 

[llamastick]

Afaik a scorpion color morph is just a phenotype corresponding to one or a handful of "rare" alleles, and isn't enough difference to even consider it a subspecies. Think iris/hair pigment.

 

[louis1618]

Afaik a scorpion color morph is just a phenotype corresponding to one or a handful of "rare" alleles, and isn't enough difference to even consider it a subspecies. Think iris/hair pigment.

so it really wouldnt be a bad thing...in away ,that brood would just be a split off the parents dna.with some with the stronger coloration of the hector.it would still be considerd a hector since its has it color,am i wrong...?

 

[psychofox]

The pictures of the so called "tunisian hectors" I've seen, have all been what I would call A. australis tunisia. The tunisian "morph" of the A. australis is quite distinctive in that it is much larger than A. australis from i.e. Egypt.

A year or two ago, one breeder got a brood from these tunisian A. australis, and offered them as hectors. Why he did this, I've honestly got no idea. The chelae hands of his adult specimens was indeed a tone darker than the rest of the scorpion, but it was by no means as dark as the chelae of what is usually called an A. australis hector. I had this tunisian morph in my own collection at the time (as well as real hectors), and I wouldn't even think of claiming these to be hectors. The name caught on however, but people have obviously noticed the difference since many has started making a distinction between hectors and tunisian hectors.

The point of this rambling is to say that the "tunisian morph" and the "tunisian hectors" are the same species from the same locale, so there is absolutely no problem with breeding them

Just to show the difference between a tunisian "hector" and a real one:

A. australis tunisia ("tunisian hector")

A. australis hector

 

[derigo]

[

A. australis tunisia ("tunisian hector")

Hey dude... I think it is just an Androctonus Australis Tunisia but not A.A hector tunisia coz basically hector refers to the form whereby the chelae and the last two metasomal segments darker, which it can be from libya or tunisia, just that tunisian species have bigger tail from the libya ones... Please correct me if i'm wrong

 

[louis1618]

only one pic is a hector,the other is regular tunisia. true they are way bigger than the egyption .my 8i a.australis hector (mistake earlier 2 8i one 7i) is just a tad bigger than my male adult egyption australis with a fatter tail aswell.and my male is just under 4 inch with a giant tail .wish i could put some pics but have them in a big tank in the closet with bad lighting.kids in the house lock closet for safety.may i'll scoop them up later to show you guys .

 

[psychofox]

That was the entire point with my first post

The so-called tunisian hectors are not "real" hectors at all.
It is a fact that the first brood of tunisian hectors offered in the hobby, came from a female looking exactly as the pic of my female above. The younger instars seem to have quite dark chelae, but the color fades as they mature. Naturally there are variations, some have darker chelae than others, but if you buy a tunisian hector in 2nd instar, you might just as well end up with something like the above.

In my opinion, the ones that have bought tunisian hectors are just victims of a marketing trick, and are fooling both themselves and others by continuing to call these hectors. The problem is that the A. australis hector is just a color variation, and thus it is pretty much a matter of opinion whether or not the chelae are dark enough to qualify for the hector name.

And by the way, my hector in the picture above is a real hector, no "tunisian hector"