Hadrudus spadix Boy or Girl? Pregnant or Phat?

[skippydude]

Hi every body,
First post, so is my Desert Hairy a male or female? Pregnant or over fed
I can't get pics to load to the Arachnoboards site so I created a Photobucket account just for this
Hoping it worked,
http://s1342.photobucket.com/user/skippydude13/library/Hadrudus spadix

 

[skippydude]

I guess my link didn't work for showing pics, sorry!
I even opened the photobucket account just for this LOL
I can't figure out how to load pics to this website so I reckon if it is a pregnant scorpion patience will tell
I'll have to wait until it gives birth

 

[skippydude]

I think I messed around and figured it out

 

[~Abyss~]

Well we need a pectine shot to sex it. The first few pictures looks like a premolt but then the last picture makes me think gravid. Unfortunately raising the young is kinda hard for these species in captivity pm if you do have some young ones I'm looking to buy some.

---------- Post added 04-05-2013 at 09:50 PM ----------

Also how are you keeping it? Looks like it has some mycosis

 

[skippydude]

I have it in a 2 gallon glass aquarium with peat/verm and pretty dry, but am changing it to sand as soon as I can get to the pet store.
It may be a tough ride for this girl if she is gravid, being my first scorpion and all!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated for her sake

There are no visible molds like trich in the tank, what is the mycosis indicator?
And should I continue normal feeding? I slowed it down thinking that I was over feeding an obese bug

 

[dairy]

Mycosis is a fungal infection. It shows on the scorp as dark/black spots or blemishes. In the side view picture (it's a bit fuzzy) and the shot from underneath there appears to be a dark spot on the pleural membrane on the right side about level with the 5th tergite (the 5th armor band across the scorp's back). Not sure but does that back left foot look dark too?

 

[skippydude]

Will changing the sub cure the fungi or is medicine needed?

 

[ShredderEmp]

Nothing can cure mycosis, but you can prevent it from spreading by drying out the enclosure.

 

[yames]

To sex you need to take some sort of macro pic of the underside of your scorpion. If you don't have a camera capable you could use a scanner on your computer to try to get a clear and zoomed in look at those combs on the bottom of your scorpion. If you can see them well enough to count them that would work too. Females are 30 or less males are 31 or more according to a quick search.

 

[ftorres]

Hello,
I say is female, and I
She might be possibly gravid. I also agree with Eddie, the babies are hard to raise in captivity as well as making the female giving birth.

Keep the substrate and the enclosure as dry as possible and if you can put it in a place where there is low light that might make the female get in the giving birth mood. Deeper substrate and a hotter spot in the thank might help as well.

Good luck.

Francisco

 

[skippydude]

I changed the sub to black desert sand with a little cork bark and it dug right in and made a 2 story apartment
It's high and dry with low light so we shall see what happens
Thank you very much to all for the advice

 

[KDiiX]

I changed the sub to black desert sand with a little cork bark and it dug right in and made a 2 story apartment
It's high and dry with low light so we shall see what happens
Thank you very much to all for the advice

Sounds like you using loose sand. Actually a subtrate where the scorpion is able to dig deep burrows would be much better than just loose sand.

The black spot on the pleural membrane looks to me more like a spot where the male stung her during the mating. Some scorpions do this for a easier mating. I don't know if Hadrurus sp. Do so but at my A.australis it looked very similar. Never heard about or seen of mycosis on the pleural membrane. Usually it starts with the legs because they have the most contact to wet substrate. This would also mean that the scorpion is a female and really might be pregnant.

As said before the raising and giving birth of them is not easy and only few are lucky to done this with success. Bit thoose i read from imitated the habitat as good as possible and had a enclosure that fits to the behavior of Hadrurus sp. Meaning very very deep substrate and very much space at all that the scorpion can burrow deep and long tunnels. The lowest layer of substrate should be light moist like in nature it gets moister if you dig deeper. Best would be a tube or something you put into the substrate at one corner of the enclosure to introduce via the tube new water direct into the deepest layer at one corner.

 

[skippydude]

I mixe some coir in the sand and she is tunneling fine
I buried a cork bark tube with more cork and a nice flat rock
The sub is 4"-5" deep and like I mentioned before, she has dug a nice little 2 story apartment and seems content

 

[dairy]

A little off topic but no one else seems to have noticed that in the first posted picture the poster may have some toe jam on the 2nd digit of the left foot. Might wanna get that looked at

 

[skippydude]

A little off topic but no one else seems to have noticed that in the first posted picture the poster may have some toe jam on the 2nd digit of the left foot. Might wanna get that looked at

LOL that's a black toe nail, I dropped a metal rail on it when assembling some shelving for the old lady