Hi all
New to the forum but need a bit of advice as Sophie my sons AFS is not really following typical behaviour.
Sold to us in April as a three year old female emperor (she's one of the Heterometrus, pedipalps all wrong for emperor)
LOVES to burrow and recently had scorplings.
Now we didn't see the ride on here back stage at all. She got fat (beware the pregnant scorpion) , and stayed hidden underground for about a week. Then 3 mini molt 'skins' appeared in the soil heap as she made her burrow larger.
Anyway she been very maternal, catching food (locust), breaking them up and distribute it too the scorplings. She shepherds them back into the burrow, and 'happily' let's them climb on/under/around her.
More recently she's hunted then deposited the food inside the burrow but then moved outside to leave them to it, and a larger set of skins has been cleared out with additional digging.
Most of what I've read says remove the young after their 1st or 2nd molt so this is what I did yesterday expecting the three scorplings I'd seen a few times.
With all the silly hot weather London been having I also re did Sophie's tank as the substrate was showing signs of plant and fungi life starting to grow.
Anyway long story short, 26 scorplings were found all post 2nd some near 3rd mold!
They were in communial groups of 4-6 in a series of 'rooms' throughout the burrow.
I remade the burrow/enclosure with fresh substrate but haven't added the scorplings back into the vivarium with Sophie.
The kids are currently in three's either huddled together or hunting baby cricket (with 100% failure)
Sophie I've not seen at all, and she's usually quite active at dusk.
So my question is do I return the kids to mum?
If they can't catch food for themselves yet, will they starve working it out? Or let Sophie feed them as one big happy family?
Only one had left the burrow (was under some cork bark) when I removed them all.
My worry is the bond is gone and Sophie will see them as pray now... The scorplings are about the size of a 5th hopper now. But she usually eats adult or X large ones.
Will post up some pictures tomorrow if they will help.
New to the forum but need a bit of advice as Sophie my sons AFS is not really following typical behaviour.
Sold to us in April as a three year old female emperor (she's one of the Heterometrus, pedipalps all wrong for emperor)
LOVES to burrow and recently had scorplings.
Now we didn't see the ride on here back stage at all. She got fat (beware the pregnant scorpion) , and stayed hidden underground for about a week. Then 3 mini molt 'skins' appeared in the soil heap as she made her burrow larger.
Anyway she been very maternal, catching food (locust), breaking them up and distribute it too the scorplings. She shepherds them back into the burrow, and 'happily' let's them climb on/under/around her.
More recently she's hunted then deposited the food inside the burrow but then moved outside to leave them to it, and a larger set of skins has been cleared out with additional digging.
Most of what I've read says remove the young after their 1st or 2nd molt so this is what I did yesterday expecting the three scorplings I'd seen a few times.
With all the silly hot weather London been having I also re did Sophie's tank as the substrate was showing signs of plant and fungi life starting to grow.
Anyway long story short, 26 scorplings were found all post 2nd some near 3rd mold!
They were in communial groups of 4-6 in a series of 'rooms' throughout the burrow.
I remade the burrow/enclosure with fresh substrate but haven't added the scorplings back into the vivarium with Sophie.
The kids are currently in three's either huddled together or hunting baby cricket (with 100% failure)
Sophie I've not seen at all, and she's usually quite active at dusk.
So my question is do I return the kids to mum?
If they can't catch food for themselves yet, will they starve working it out? Or let Sophie feed them as one big happy family?
Only one had left the burrow (was under some cork bark) when I removed them all.
My worry is the bond is gone and Sophie will see them as pray now... The scorplings are about the size of a 5th hopper now. But she usually eats adult or X large ones.
Will post up some pictures tomorrow if they will help.
