Expert advice and input please?

[CWilson1351]

Honestly, there are a ton of species you could keep based on personal preference. Obviously, being a beginner to scorpions, I would recommend not getting anything hotter than a Centruroides, but even this genus I would wait until I had a bit more experience. Hadrurus, Heterometrus, Pandinus and Hadogenes are all good options if you are one who wants a bigger species to start with. There are many smaller species that are also fun. If you are looking for something that has more of a feeding response, I would go with (as mentioned above) Hadrurus, Vaejovis, Paruroctonus or some other similar species. There are so many! And as for the forest, Heterometrus generally take the cake for me. Pandinus are also great, but a bit tougher to find currently. If you look in the classifieds section, there are multiple Heterometrus breeders (myself included), so you can avoid WC altogether pretty easily.

Often overlooked are the smaller, big clawed tropical species. My profile picture is of my male Brotheas gervaisii. Extremely easy to care for, great beginner species. Diplocentrus, Uroctonus, Didymocentrus, Neochactas and Opisthacanthus are all great species too. You can't go wrong with many of these species! Just watch out for the hotter scorpion genera.

It seems Scorpions and tarantulas have something in common aside from the 8 legs, the species I am most drawn to are the more dangerous ones lol
This time around I'm going slow though. When I started with tarantulas, my first two were C. cyaneopubescens and P. fasciata. First one no big deal, even if she has been the only one to exhibit any defensive behavior. Second one, well Poecilotheria. I've been lucky though, she is a doll and has behaved perfectly.

Anyhow, I definitely have lots of individual species to choose from. I'm going to go back and look through the classifieds again. Thank you for all the information!!!

 

[CWilson1351]

A month later and I am back to thank everyone for the input and advice! I finally settled on Hadrurus arizonensis for my first. Despite my wife protesting regularly, she was stung by one as a child living in Arizona.
Well I looked and looked through classifieds frequently to try and catch a deal on one. Sadly I either didn't look deep enough or at the right time as I didn't see any current offers.
Today while exploring one of the local reptile specialist stores in the area I found two very small Scorpions labeled as Dune Scorpions, one that was most definitely a Pandinus species, one that wasn't labeled yet, and much to my delight a small (2-3in) Desert Hairy!
I wasn't thrilled with the common names being how they were labeled but I still bought my first scorpion finally. So now I have my H. arizonensis Here is a picture of "her"

 

[Mila]

DH's are a great first. Their hunting is a lot more exciting compared to say an emperor scorpion who just crush their pray. It's always nice to see a scorpion who realises it owns a tail

 

[CWilson1351]

DH's are a great first. Their hunting is a lot more exciting compared to say an emperor scorpion who just crush their pray. It's always nice to see a scorpion who realises it owns a tail

Yeah, it's hard to tell because this is all through words on a screen, but I'm actually a bit giddy that I finally got my scorpion. I've admired them for so long and it feels great to have her.
I got to feed her a small cricket and a small Dubia nymph before bringing her home. There is definitely self awareness about that tail! The best part is my wife, the protestor, watched her actually eating the Dubia and that is what brought her around to liking the new addition.

 

[FatherOfScorpions]

Congrats on the new scorpion! Very healthy looking specimen you got there.