- Joined
- Jul 4, 2005
- Messages
- 8,982
I have four that molted and seem very healthy. Two didn't molt and died, those two were deformed. I have 5 left, one is not molting so I took a macro pic, it's also deformed and I'm not expecting it to molt and live going by what happened to the others. The tail only has 4 segments like one of the others. The cause might not be genetic, could be other causes. The good news is that it looks like I have two females, maybe 3. And I'm confident at least another is a male, maybe I have two males and two females. I'm going by tooth count on the pectines even though they are 3rd instar. One has 20(prob male) and two have 16(female). The other looks to have 17 or 18, hard to tell on that one. Anybody have info on the accuracy of pectine teeth counting at 3rd instar? I can post pectine pics of the others if people are interested.
. I think they are hyped up because they aren't common in the hobby and the size report. The case is probably that they average the same size as emps with bigger ones and smaller ones. And just like emps, I suspect there are populations of large individuals in the wild for whatever reasons. Most of the adult swammerdamis I've seen on the net so far look to be around 5 inches, like emps. But I've seen a couple of really nice big looking adults as well on the net. I remember reading about the "official" record length and diff between the biggest emp and biggest smammer, it was only a fraction of an inch, don't remember what it was though. And who really knows how big the biggest wild emp or swam is out there. I think I would bet on it being an emperor since the bigger ones are from a place people don't go often, not people that care or have cameras anyway. I've wanted to get some though, glad I finally have them.