I know of course it stays warm in Arizona year round, but different critters have different habits so I’m asking. (I’m from a place with winter...)
I collected a scolopendra of some kind near Tucson this past August. It seems to be living quite happily in the home I made for it. It has made all sorts of tunnels in the substrate and I can often see it resting in a burrow if I pick up the container and look up at the bottom.
Last week I added some water to the water dish and let it spill out in order to keep the sub moist. The water ran into the tunnels and flooded the burrow where the centipede was. I looked underneath and it was unresponsive...just floating around in the water not moving, so I assumed it was dead. I got my long tongs out to dig it up it didn’t move until I had pulled it out of the dirt completely, then lo and behold it was alive and wriggling and I nearly had a heart attack. Good thing I didn’t use my fingers.
That leads me to my question. Was it still and unresponsive because it was, I don’t know, feeling zen or something? Or was it trying to hibernate and I disturbed it badly by digging it up with my tongs? Lately when I put crickets in, they remain uneaten so I don’t think it’s been coming out at all.
I collected a scolopendra of some kind near Tucson this past August. It seems to be living quite happily in the home I made for it. It has made all sorts of tunnels in the substrate and I can often see it resting in a burrow if I pick up the container and look up at the bottom.
Last week I added some water to the water dish and let it spill out in order to keep the sub moist. The water ran into the tunnels and flooded the burrow where the centipede was. I looked underneath and it was unresponsive...just floating around in the water not moving, so I assumed it was dead. I got my long tongs out to dig it up it didn’t move until I had pulled it out of the dirt completely, then lo and behold it was alive and wriggling and I nearly had a heart attack. Good thing I didn’t use my fingers.
That leads me to my question. Was it still and unresponsive because it was, I don’t know, feeling zen or something? Or was it trying to hibernate and I disturbed it badly by digging it up with my tongs? Lately when I put crickets in, they remain uneaten so I don’t think it’s been coming out at all.