Confusion between B.gigas and B.jacksoni?

smiittyy

Arachnosquire
Joined
Sep 8, 2015
Messages
128
I recently commented on picture thread and informed the op that what he actually had was a B.gigas and not a B.jacksoni. He seemed to disagree.

Today i ordered a B.jacksoni 6i female to pair up with my male 5i B.jacksoni. He sent pictures of the specimens first and me being just a hobbyist and not a breeder my first conclusion was i must have been wrong on previous comments on the picture thread. That i was in fact confusing the two species. But after reading more today i dont think i had it wrong.

To me the main difference between the two species that is identifiable from pictures is the difference in the pedipalps. The pedipalps on the B.jacksoni are dark only on the chela and the contrast begins at the end of the chela. The dark abruptly ending and the orange/yellow begining. On the B.gigas the dark color extends throughout the entire chela/tibia and continues up the patella. Basically the entire pedipalp is dark colored. Am i confused on this? i know scorpions can be hard to identify.

This is a picture of the scorpion i bought today sold as a B.jacksoni. Is this a B.jacksoni?

 

G. Carnell

Arachnoemperor
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 27, 2003
Messages
3,611
Hey

Often you can identify scorpions based on 'looks', but often you cant
bear in mind sometimes the different species are described based on alcohol preserved specimens which lose all colour. Could you tell the difference without colour? ;)

See this article, it has a key to differentiate between east african Babycurus. I uploaded the important part as an upload!
http://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?var=true&pid=act-001:1973:30::461

Good luck! :)
 

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Scorpionluva

Arachnoangel
Joined
Jul 15, 2013
Messages
925
This is a picture of the scorpion i bought today sold as a B.jacksoni. Is this a B.jacksoni?

That looks like a B gigas female to me
The biggest noticeable difference in appearance to me was that B jacksoni has a darker coloration on front of carapace which also matches the color of the stripe through the center of the tergites and intersegmental membrane while the B gigas has a solid but lighter colored carapace with matching tergite coloration while the intersegmental membrane is always lighter than carapace/tergites
 
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