Breeding Tityus bastosi, questions

AzJohn

Arachnoking
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I'm having some problems with these guys. My trio of Tityus silvestris is poping out 3-5 babies every few months. I'm happy with them.

My t bastosi are not doing as good.

I've been waiting and waiting for months and months and finally one of my females produces a brood. one baby. :wall:

Anyways can some of you folks that are having some sucsess please let me know anything that might help. Whatever you can think of.
 

Envyizm

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They seem to benefit from small amounts of flooding in the substrate, like temps around 85 and the adults seem to be more fond of smaller prey items. If they get too hot or too dry for even a short period of time they seem to miscarry "had it happen with my last brood". I'll let you know if I find anything more about them as success or failure follows.
 

AzJohn

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thanks
I think I wasn't keeping them wet enough for a while. I've corrected it since then. now one little baby. Hopefully more two come.

John
 

Michiel

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Mine are now instar 5 and they show sexual dimorphism, I am going to mate them soon. I keep them, and they should be kept, as arboreal rainforest species at high humidity and between 27-30 Celsius during the day, at night the temp drops to 18-20 Celsius in my enclosures.
Tityus bastosi is smaller than T.silvestris and this results in smaller broods. one pre-juvenile is rather poor and would be even for a first or last brood :)
Good thing you adjusted captive conditions. Hope they give you hordes of young :)
 

AzJohn

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I was keeping the bastosi the same as the silvestris. I expect that the bastosi is not as hardy as the silvestris. At least as far as breeding goes. I've been in and out of the house quite a bit the last few months, I'll make sure to keep it damp.


Thanks Guys
 

Quixtar

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I was keeping the bastosi the same as the silvestris. I expect that the bastosi is not as hardy as the silvestris. At least as far as breeding goes. I've been in and out of the house quite a bit the last few months, I'll make sure to keep it damp.


Thanks Guys
I've been experiencing quite the opposite. I've had more silvestris die than bastosi, including 3 out of my 4 males, which for some reason, are much rarer to come across than females in my experience. Also, out of the 2 clutches I've had out of both species, both clutches (9 each) of bastosi all survived initially, whereas both clutches of silvestris (10-12 each) all died. It has been frustrating to say the least now that I only have 1 adult male silvestris left.

I've been keeping both species in identical conditions (high humidity, moderately high temperature) seeing as they came from the same NE Peru locale. What I've noticed is that the silvestris favor a higher humidity as they tend to hang around the water cap much more often than the bastosi. The first few adult silvestris and bastosi deaths were likely due to humidity (something which I have since fixed), and the late male silvestris most likely died due to old age. Additionally, the odd thing is, the only adult bastosi that have died were 2 females (which I find rarer than males in this species) and 1 sling out of 18, whereas the only adult silvestris that have died were 3 males (which I find rarer than females in this species) in addition to all of the 20-24 slings. In both silvestris clutches, the slings appear to have been eaten by the mother or were randomly found dead in the enclosure. This all happened within a day of leaving the mother's back, before I had the chance to remove any of the slings, and I made sure humidity was high with good ventilation in both cases, so I'd like to discount that. All bastosi slings survived and only 1 died long after from some unknown reason.

Also, all four clutches of bastosi and silvestris popped at roughly the same time and were kept on the same shelf, but silvestris died and bastosi survived. Perhaps there's a difference in temperature tolerance between the species?

That's my 2 cents.

So John, since we're having problems with each other's opposite species, what say you and I do some trading? I've got 9x 2-3i bastosi slings and can part with 3 or 4 of them.
 
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Michiel

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I think your experiences ( 2 people) lack the statistical significance to draw such conclusions, Quixtar...What kind of enclosure are you keeping them in?
Bottle caps won't do much good for drinking purposes, since Tityus species drink from leaves (droplets, condens etc), and only sporadically from sources of standing water.

I do not have bred both species yet, but I raised 9 T.bastosi from instar 2 to 5, 4 males, 5 females (some females will molt another time) and 8 T.silvestris from instar 2-5, one died, 5 females, 2 males. Male-female ratio's in both species should be around 1:2 according to some literature.

Scorpions eat their young for several reasons, which you probably already know. I have had "dead young randomly through the enclosure" with I.maculatus and B.gigas once.....Still puzzles me what caused this....I have no clue...
 

scorpionmom

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I think your experiences ( 2 people) lack the statistical significance to draw such conclusions, Quixtar...What kind of enclosure are you keeping them in?
Bottle caps won't do much good for drinking purposes, since Tityus species drink from leaves (droplets, condens etc), and only sporadically from sources of standing water.

I do not have bred both species yet, but I raised 9 T.bastosi from instar 2 to 5, 4 males, 5 females (some females will molt another time) and 8 T.silvestris from instar 2-5, one died, 5 females, 2 males. Male-female ratio's in both species should be around 1:2 according to some literature.

Scorpions eat their young for several reasons, which you probably already know. I have had "dead young randomly through the enclosure" with I.maculatus and B.gigas once.....Still puzzles me what caused this....I have no clue...
Yeah, having dead young sucks, I had P. imperator give birth once and it SURPRISED me.:D Too bad though, all the babies died, some were even eaten...it would be terrible to lose the I. maculatus or the B. gigas... or any scorpion.;)
 

Quixtar

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I think your experiences ( 2 people) lack the statistical significance to draw such conclusions, Quixtar...What kind of enclosure are you keeping them in?
Bottle caps won't do much good for drinking purposes, since Tityus species drink from leaves (droplets, condens etc), and only sporadically from sources of standing water.

I do not have bred both species yet, but I raised 9 T.bastosi from instar 2 to 5, 4 males, 5 females (some females will molt another time) and 8 T.silvestris from instar 2-5, one died, 5 females, 2 males. Male-female ratio's in both species should be around 1:2 according to some literature.

Scorpions eat their young for several reasons, which you probably already know. I have had "dead young randomly through the enclosure" with I.maculatus and B.gigas once.....Still puzzles me what caused this....I have no clue...
These are just observations, not hypotheses.

I keep them in the small multi-sectional enclosures from www.tarantulahomes.com. They have a single large vent on the lid good for maintaining humidity yet providing adequate ventilation. Droplets on the wall from mistings tend to remain for a good deal of time as does the dampness of substrate. A small shallow bottle cap is provided as a source of standing water for maintaining a fair amount of humidity (~65%) at all times in my absence and a cork board "raft" is provided to prevent drowning. Enclosures are filled with approximately 3" or 7.5 cm of coco fiber substrate, several small vertical cork bark pieces for hides, and adorned with fake plants to simulate a naturalistic environment.

Enclosures are misted daily with occasional flooding of substrate in one corner to maintain a humidity of 80-85% and to provide droplets on fake leaves and walls for drinking. Temperatures are kept at 81-82 degrees F (27-28 C). Tityus bastosi and Tityus silvestris are maintained in the same multi-sectional enclosure, each occupying a single compartment with the same species and thus sharing the same conditions. Both species have been observed behaving as usual (i.e., feeding, mating, occasional drinking from the bottle cap, and increased level of activity at night). Gravid females are separated and isolated to deli cups from Superior Enterprise, Inc., filled with coco fiber substrate, provided with smaller bottle caps containing rafts, and larger pieces of cork board leaned against the walls of the cup to provide a hide. Lids of cups are ventilated with a breathable fabric to maintain high levels of humidity as well as maintain good ventilation. Humidity and ambient temperature are kept the same as the larger communal enclosure. Once instars leave the mother's back, they are isolated to smaller portion cups with similar setups, three to a cup. No cannibalism has been witnessed despite vulnerability of young molting individuals. A single 2i individual died of unknown causes.

My observations agree with the 1:2 male-to-female ratio in Tityus silvestris due to difficulties in obtaining adult males (e.g., most people who responded to my ad at the time had small groups of individuals but in almost all cases, all were female) in the past. The Tityus bastosi observation was simply from a personal inference when I attended a reptile show and came across a vendor selling the species. They had a large colony of them, yet only a handful were female. The large number of males may have simply been hand-picked for sale.

I feel like I'm writing a scientific research paper, which I actually have to return to now, so I'll stop there. {D
 

Michiel

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Hi,

1. Yeah, I should not have used the word conclusions :)
2. Those are some nice enclosures. Don't hink these are the problem;
3. Captive conditions don't seem to be the problem. Both species have a large distribution area (I think this could point at differences between male-female ratios in certain populations), are mainly found in rainforest (primary and secondary), but also in pockets of forest or gallery forest in "Savannah belts".....

It is a mystery to me why these clutches died......

PS. Just a tip for people buying scorpions. Explain sexual dimorphism in the species to the seller and just ask the males/ females you need....
 
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AzJohn

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Dec 25, 2007
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I've been experiencing quite the opposite. I've had more silvestris die than bastosi, including 3 out of my 4 males, which for some reason, are much rarer to come across than females in my experience. Also, out of the 2 clutches I've had out of both species, both clutches (9 each) of bastosi all survived initially, whereas both clutches of silvestris (10-12 each) all died. It has been frustrating to say the least now that I only have 1 adult male silvestris left.

I've been keeping both species in identical conditions (high humidity, moderately high temperature) seeing as they came from the same NE Peru locale. What I've noticed is that the silvestris favor a higher humidity as they tend to hang around the water cap much more often than the bastosi. The first few adult silvestris and bastosi deaths were likely due to humidity (something which I have since fixed), and the late male silvestris most likely died due to old age. Additionally, the odd thing is, the only adult bastosi that have died were 2 females (which I find rarer than males in this species) and 1 sling out of 18, whereas the only adult silvestris that have died were 3 males (which I find rarer than females in this species) in addition to all of the 20-24 slings. In both silvestris clutches, the slings appear to have been eaten by the mother or were randomly found dead in the enclosure. This all happened within a day of leaving the mother's back, before I had the chance to remove any of the slings, and I made sure humidity was high with good ventilation in both cases, so I'd like to discount that. All bastosi slings survived and only 1 died long after from some unknown reason.

Also, all four clutches of bastosi and silvestris popped at roughly the same time and were kept on the same shelf, but silvestris died and bastosi survived. Perhaps there's a difference in temperature tolerance between the species?

That's my 2 cents.

So John, since we're having problems with each other's opposite species, what say you and I do some trading? I've got 9x 2-3i bastosi slings and can part with 3 or 4 of them.
Funny how life works. What I found today.
 
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Michiel

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Congrats with the kids, John! :D you where waiting for this, and now it happened. :D

Last night I found out that one of my females "Brotheas sp. Guyana" gave birth! I'll post pics on VL soon.
 
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