# Scolopendra hardwickei Experiment



## Lucas339 (Aug 24, 2009)

This will be the thread where i post all my findings for the experiment with satelliterob's _S. hardwickei_ centipede. 

before receiving the animal, everything that was to be used for the experiment was sterilized with 70% ethanol and rinsed with RODI water.  in my past experience, 70% ethanol is and effective killer of mites thus eliminating any chance of adults being present.  the area in the lab that the animal is kept was also sterilzed using the same method.

i prepared five petri dishes with clean paper towel for incubating the frass.  they were cleaned in the same manner as stated above.  i also set up an oven at a temp around 80-82 degrees fahrenheit.

refer to thread for more details: http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=159672


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 24, 2009)

*August 20, 2009*

Fed the animal a frozen thawed cricket (feeding frozen thawed will help eliminate any furthure possible parasites).  the animal accepted the f/t (here on out used to refer to frozen, thawed) quickly.

placed a water dish in enclosure.  animal drank for a few minutes and went away from dish.  after a few hours, the dish was removed.

animal deficated.  frass collected and half was preserved in 70 ETOH (here on out used to refer to ethanol) and the other was was placed in a petri dish and put in the incuating oven.

examined frass under disecting scope.  definite eggs.  eggs large (0.3825 mm in diameter; measured using ocular micrometer) and white.  frass was photographed and placed in oven.

after removing frass, enclosure was cleaned. old paper towels removed, cleaned with ETOH, and replaced with new paper towel.

crumpled paper towels were added this time to give the animal a place to hide a bit.  the animal took right to it.

experiment set up:







animal used:













photo of the frass showing the eggs in question:


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 24, 2009)

*August 21, 2009*

Fed animal 2 f/t crickets

collected frass and preserved it.

cleaned and changed enclosure towels as previously done.  when chaing towels, crumpled pieces are changed.

added water to mite culture.


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 24, 2009)

*August 24, 2009*

Came in and inspected culture in the oven.  culture was completely covered in mold.  culture was preserved.

2 pieces of frass were collected. both were preserved.  i didn't want to keep these as i did not know how old they were and if the eggs would be viable.  the enclosure is kept dry and eggs need moisture to develop.

1 frass was examined under scope.   the frass was dry and hard.  i cut open the frass down the middle and found that the eggs are throughout the frass.  this eliminates any therory that the eggs are being laid after the animal deficates.

animal fed 2 f/t crickets and given water dish.

animal deficated.  frass collected and placed in petri dish.  this time i will put the frass in a small cup with some coco fiber to aid in humidity.  enclosure cleaned as with same methods above.


----------



## Oasis Inverts (Aug 24, 2009)

Great work bro........:clap: :clap:


----------



## ftorres (Aug 25, 2009)

:? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :?


----------



## Satellite Rob (Aug 25, 2009)

Hay Lucas339, 
I had alot of cultures get mold and not hatch.I never figured out why it 
happened.Was I keeping them to wet or to dry?I tryed on different substrate 
and it ddn't seem to matter what I did.Some molded and some didn't.I always 
kept about 10 cultures going at a time.I had 8 cultures hatch into mites and 
twice that many start to mold.I wish I could help more.Just try to keep more 
than 1 culture at a time.I was keeping them at room temperature.That was 
80 degrees.I also had them in vials with small pin hole in the top.I think the 
vials help by holding the humidity in.I wish I could help more.


----------



## szappan (Aug 25, 2009)

That's _TWICE_ now I've opened this thread and viewed that frass close-up while I'm eating... it's like I can taste it!  :wall: 

But seriously, really fantastic work!  Thank you for sharing!  Moving the hobby forward one step at a time!  Looking forward to more.  Congratulations to all involved! :clap:


----------



## ftorres (Aug 25, 2009)

Hello All,
If they are mixed within the frass, wouldn't that be an indication of a bad egg being discarted?

cool experiment and a long shot at making them hatch.

Best of luck, I would love to see what comes out of those eggs


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 25, 2009)

ftorres said:


> Hello All,
> If they are mixed within the frass, wouldn't that be an indication of a bad egg being discarted?
> 
> cool experiment and a long shot at making them hatch.
> ...


we think that these eggs are some kind of internal parasitic mite.

i moved one culture over to coco fiber and im keeping this one i the lab.  i think the mold problem was due to not enough ventilation.


----------



## wayne the pain (Aug 25, 2009)

Do you think the internal parasite would need a intermediate host? then when pede eats this host the cycle is complete?


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 25, 2009)

wayne the pain said:


> Do you think the internal parasite would need a intermediate host? then when pede eats this host the cycle is complete?


too early to tell at this point.  what animal would a centipede eat that eats cenitpede poop?  this cycle may be really complex.  not all internal parasites have a single intermediate host.  some have many.  its too early to tell anything.

i have at least one dead one on the way to do some gut analysis to see if i can find whats inside of these passing the eggs.  that is, if the one i get has the parasite.


----------



## wayne the pain (Aug 25, 2009)

Crickets and roaches eat pretty much anything dont they?

Looking forward to your conclusions


----------



## Galapoheros (Aug 26, 2009)

I really want to call those eggs but I can't do that with 100% certainty yet.  I need a little more, like seeing something in inside them, or of course, one hatching would do it for me.  I had another thought but I'm guessing too much so I won't mention, maybe later.  Great pic and looking forward to anymore news!


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 26, 2009)

they are absolutely eggs.  on the preserved ones, i can see the cells splitting under a light microscope.


----------



## ranchulas (Aug 26, 2009)

Lucas339 said:


> they are absolutely eggs.  on the preserved ones, i can see the cells splitting under a light microscope.


Now I'm courious??? Really want to know what could be growing inside......Maybe we don't really want to know.....could be a new strain of the H1N1.....LOL


----------



## Galapoheros (Aug 26, 2009)

Cool, that's what I needed to hear, that they were actually looked into to see if they are alive, or used to be.  Can you take a pic of that?  I know some are sure they are mite eggs but I was thinking about what ftorres said.  At first I blew it off but then started wondering if females do discard reproductive material or tiny eggs.  It made me wonder if they regularly produce tiny eggs until their system tells them to stop discarding them and grow the eggs when the season comes along.  Seems like it'd be a waste of energy though if that were true.  Hey I know that sounds crazy but this whole topic sounds pretty crazy.  If that were true, what a way to sex pedes!  I often see small white balls in pede frass but the ones I've seen are bright white, not so opaque as those, don't know if they're the same thing.


----------



## Finntroll86 (Aug 26, 2009)

Well it is interesting, I have seen those same white spheres in the frass of my _S. subspinipes_. But i have never heard of a endoparasitic mite let alone one that gestates inside the mid-gut of a pede, I have read through "The Biology of Centipedes" by J.G.E. Lewis, but couldn't find anything related to this occurrence. Maybe they could possibly be a cystic form of protozoan? I dunno, i am eager to see if you can hatch these "eggs". Good work and good luck!


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 27, 2009)

*August 25, 2009*

Put frass from yester on previously frozen coco fiber in a 2 oz. sauce cup with air holes.

fed animal 2 f/t crickets

examined frass (preserved) under scope: frass is made up of undigest parts of crickets.  wings, legs, and mouth pieces were seen in the frass.  appeared to be only the chitionous parts of the crickets.  legs looked hollow.

no frass collected today. animal did not defecate.

changed towels and cleaned enclousure.


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 27, 2009)

*August 26, 2009*

Collected frass from over night.  frass was dry but was rehydrated with DI water.  frass was checked later in the day and some viable eggs were seen.

fed 2 f/t crickets 

examined "urate?": animal passes a white urate looking (like in snakes but not sure if you call them urates with inverts) clump.  these have been previously seen with frass.  examined urate under scope.  there are no eggs with the urates.


----------



## SAn (Aug 27, 2009)

Just a suggestion, 
stop feeding so much so often. Its not good.


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 27, 2009)

im feeding as per the owners recomendations.


----------



## Lucas339 (Aug 31, 2009)

*08/31/09*

from the last entry until now, there have been no new findings.  feeding has been maintained and any frass found has been collected and placed in the sauce cups.

on the 28th i noticed the eggs on the frass that i collected on the 24th were turning gray. half of the egg was white and half was gray.  today, the eggs are all gray and appear to be no longer viable. they are all gray in color and have changed from being nice and plump to having the appearance of small pieces of round clumped sand.  one of the other cultures had mold all over it and was discarded.  the remaining 2 cultures i have, are showing signs of molding.  i removed them from the sauce cups and placed them in petri dishes with paper towel and did not over them.  i hope this will stop the progression of the mold.


----------



## micheldied (Aug 31, 2009)

this is interesting...keep us posted.
maybe its like the ovulation cycle in human women?
unused eggs discarded.


----------



## Lucas339 (Sep 3, 2009)

*09/03/09*

continued with feedings and attempts to hatch eggs.

this morning i did find something interesting.  the female defected a small amount of feces. the interesting part was that there were alot of eggs that were not on the feces.  they were next to the feces on the paper towel.  it appears that she defected these out somehow.  the paper towel didn't show any signs of a wet defecation that had dried up.  earlier findings have shown that eggs are only present when the animal defecates from its digestive system and not its renal system.  

i received a dead specimen preserved in alcohol.  this specimen died in shipping.  i plan on disecting the animal soon.  i am looking for two things. 1. gut contents to see if i can find any type of internal parasites and 2. i want to see how big the venom glands are of this aimal.  there is no information on the bite or toxicity of the venom for this species.  in fact there is no information on this species other than taxonomic descriptions and location data.


----------



## Lucas339 (Sep 4, 2009)

*09/04/09- Disection Results*

Last night I disected my preserved animal.  as stated before, i wanted to find the venom glands of the animal and wanted to look at gut contents to see if i could find any parasites.  this animal was much smaller than the one i am working on for the experiment.  total body length was 12.4 cm.

The venom gland
the venom gland was not in the location my diagram suggested.  the diagram suggested that the glands would be located under tergites one and two.  this was not the case. the maxillipedes of this animal actuall extend into the body cavity all the way to tergite two.  inside the body cavity, they are have covered with an exoskelton similar to the one outside the body cavity.  there were alot of muscles in this area of the body.  after some more digging around, i was able to locate the glands.  they are actually inside the maxillipeds.  they take up the entire second segment of the maxilliped.  i would have to do more disections with other centipedes but this may suggest that the size of the maxillipeds can be used to determine the size of the venom glands.  this in now way can be conclusive to venom strength, only venom volume.  the bigger the gland, the more venom it can hold.

Digestive tract.
the digestive tract is similar to most arthopods.  the mouth opens to the stomach.  the stomach in this animal was seperated from the intestine by an S bend.  this occurs around mid body.  after the S bend, it is a straight shot to the anus.  the gut is in the lower half of the body.

i opened up the entire gut of the animal to look for any internal parasites.   this animal only had some unidentifiable arthopod remains in the stomach.  they appeared to be broken up and chewed and show no signs of being mite-like.

from the spiracles, there was a network of tubes that ran though out the body.  than ran both head to tail and dorsal to vental.  i did not notice any nerves but i will review the photos.

the photos will be posted when i get around to editing them.  they will be in a sperate thread.


----------



## Elytra and Antenna (Sep 14, 2009)

I haven't posted anything on my findings because Rob never sent me a specimen. Obviously there's nothing I can report about these mystery poop objects. Simple logic dictates that since there is apparently nothing to lay them they aren't eggs. Rob said he was going to send me a centipede for observation a number of times he just didn't come through and never even sent me a message explaining that he changed his mind after sending a number of messages that he was sending it. Maybe he went on vacation and didn't have time but I think I've seen him post since then.


----------



## Lucas339 (Sep 14, 2009)

nothing new to report.   just feeding and trying to hatch out the eggs.


----------



## rivergod (May 26, 2010)

*Please continue the thread, it is fascinating*

I would love to hear further results of your experiments.


----------



## Lucas339 (May 29, 2010)

i disected many animals.  most had nematodes living in them in various parts of the body.  i didn't get any of the "eggs" to ever hatch.  i tried several methods and got nothing.


----------



## Spidercrazy (May 30, 2010)

*Do the eggs you collected...*

Did they in anyway look like nematode or eggs? Or did they look more like mite eggs. Can't wait to see the results


----------



## Lucas339 (Jun 1, 2010)

there will not be any other results.  i returned the animal to rob and rob is no longer with us.


----------



## Spidercrazy (Jun 1, 2010)

Lucas339 said:


> there will not be any other results.  i returned the animal to rob and rob is no longer with us.


Where'd he go?


----------



## Rick McJimsey (Jun 1, 2010)

Spidercrazy said:


> Where'd he go?


Rob died..


----------



## Crysta (Jun 1, 2010)

im sorry to hear.


----------



## szappan (Jun 2, 2010)

wow... my deepest condolences.


----------



## Spidercrazy (Jun 2, 2010)

well now i feel like an idiot...im so sorry..


----------



## Lucas339 (Jun 2, 2010)

Spidercrazy said:


> well now i feel like an idiot...im so sorry..


don't feel bad.


----------

