# hard to finde scolopendra in the wild



## ornata (Oct 29, 2007)

hello

It seems to me that it is very hard to finde scolopendra sp. in the wild!?
You can watch the pictures from the field trips, but there are very few pictures of scolopendra!

I have been 3 times on Cyprus, hunting for Chaetopelma gracile(european tarantula species), but saw only one scolopendra cingulata during this 3 trips, and it was so fast that I actually dident manage to get a good look at it either


I have also been in thailand for 2 weeks, and there I found scorpions and tarantulas, but no centipedes!

Does anyone feel/mean the same?


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## Steven (Oct 29, 2007)

never been to Azia myself, but i think it depends alot in what season you go and what time a day, personally i find the early morning, just after sunrise the best time to collect.


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## cacoseraph (Oct 29, 2007)

well, unless i have a photographer with me i am usually  more interested in grabbing the scolopendra rather than taking it's picture

i do wish i had more pics of wild catching and in situ, for sure


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## cacoseraph (Oct 29, 2007)

Steven said:


> never been to Azia myself, but i think it depends alot in what season you go and what time a day, personally i find the early morning, just after sunrise the best time to collect.


crepuscular in general is pretty sweet. i found tons of polymorpha around dawn time


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## Galapoheros (Oct 29, 2007)

Yes, pretty hard to find at times.  Then some days are pretty good.  I tend to find more Scolopendra heros out and about up to 4 days after a good rain and when it's warm, not too hot, and at night.  But in the last two months, I saw an S. heros heros hunting at 4pm on a small cliff.  But like Caco said, I'm grabbing instead of taking pics.  And more recently I was hiking along and there was a big S. heros castaneiceps walking along the ground poking it's head in holes.  Really dry and pretty hot that day.  Just last Thursday, I was in w tx and I saw two orange Scolopendra with black checker markings on their tergites hunting on a short cliff at 2pm and it hadn't rained in a while out there.  They were about 4 feet apart.  I couldn't believe I saw those, that was a big reason I went out there ...to see that color form.  Never thought I'd see any.  There they were, on my last day of the trip after many miles of walking around.  I walked 12 miles that day, got dark and thought I was in trouble for a little while.  That rocked!  ...oh, anyway, yeah ...pretty hard to find.  I usually find T's way before I see a scolo.


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## bengerno (Oct 30, 2007)

Hi guys,

My one and only Scolopendra hunting was a year ago in Crete. After a pouring rain I found many Scolopendra cretica (is that right Steven?) in different sizes under the rocks. A couple of days later, in the same place I almost find nothing.

Pics of the field:













Scolopendra cretica:






A wolf spider with babies:


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## Vixvy (Oct 30, 2007)

Nice place. Under some moist rocks you can find more stuff.


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## David_F (Oct 30, 2007)

bengerno said:


> After a pouring rain...


Ditto.  At least what I'm used to finding.....Scolopendra polymorpha seem to be pretty plentiful the day or so after a good rain.  As long as there's moisture under the rocks you should have some luck.  Take some long tweezers to catch them and be careful not to drop the rocks on them.  They're pretty damn fast so it's easy to forget what you're doing (well, it was for me anyway....  ). 

Good luck.


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