building a home for scutigera

[Gorazd]

Hello everyone,

to cut a long story short, a few months ago I became obsessed with house centipedes and I want to prepare an enclosure suitable for one or more (if they can coexist) of them. I've done some research and found out a lot that made me love and respect them even more but found almost no info on how to keep these as pets. So, can anyone share some experiences or just give me some pointers on what I should do to ensure they're happy and have all they need? What would be their main requirements besides the obvious like breathing holes, a secure lid, a hiding place, some water... I would really appreciate if someone who has kept or is keeping scutigera coleoptratas gave me some tips. It's still a work in progress (and with the amount of free time I have, which is next to none, it will be for a while) but when I do finish it I promise to post some pics.

 

[zonbonzovi]

Hello, I've only kept one found in an arid location. I kept it with objects setup to mimic rock crevasses in which to hide and to increase the surface area. A minimal amount of substrate was used and kept moderately moist. It molted twice after I captured it before dying. Never did witness it eat although prey items occasionally disappeared. I'm not entirely sure about coexistence although I believe someone reported here that it did not work out form them. Obviously, being primarily nocturnal they would benefit from being kept in a location where light is subdued(and you'll have the opportunity to see them more often).

 

[Travis K]

I cohabitated three for a couple months and then one day I forgot to water them and they all dried up :-(

IME they are moisture sensitive.

 

[clockworkorange]

Hiya!

I have kept Scutigera coleoptrata in captivity for several years as part of my work on centipedes. I also bred them in captivity for developmental work on their embryos.
For best results, you should keep them in a fairly high container with lots of vertical surfaces they can climb on. In order to shed properly, these creatures need to be hanging upside down. They will usually refuse large prey such as sub-adult crickets but they will readily eat small(ish) spiders (using a very interesting hunting method!). Feeding once a week seems to be fine. You can house a few together, but you will probably loose some to cannibalism. Each centipede will have a territory in the box, and they may fight for the control of the best spot. Scutigera are fairly easy to sex: look at the ventral aspect of the terminal segment. If you see hooks extending posteriorly behind this segment, you are looking at a female. These hooks are used to hold the eggs and roll them in dirt after oviposition. The eggs measure less than 2 mm and they are laid in clutches of 1 to 8-10 in soil and covered with dirt; therefore, they are very difficult to see. The best way to get them to lay eggs is to house 2/3 females with a male and provide a little dish at the bottom of the tank containing about 1 cm of fine moist earth. Hatching occurs after about 1 month of development at 24/25C. The newborn centipede has 4 pairs of legs only and it will add leg-bearing segments at each moult until reaching maturity. It's actually a good way to guess the age of a Scutigeromoph when you catch it: if it has less than 15 pairs of legs, it's a young/ subadult. Life expectancy should be around 3/4 years but there are no real data on the subject (at least to my knowledge). You will find more info on scutigera and other centipedes there: http://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/2550

Have fun with them and don't hesitate to ask if you need more details/ info.

Cheers,

Mika

 

[Gorazd]

Hey guys, thanx for replying. Knowing there's someone who has experience with these beasties helps a lot. I'll do my best with the enclosure and when it's done I'll just have to catch some, which shouldn't be too difficult. One day after gaining some experience I'd sure like to get my hands on one of the asian varieties but for now I plan to stick to local species. Thanx again I'll be sure to post any updates.

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

This Invertebrates-Magazine backissue has an article on keeping and breeding S. coleoptrata:

Two points I differ with clockworkorange on are:
1. The eggs are rather easy to see.
2. They don't need to hang to molt. I've seen hundreds of molts and all were surface molts due to the setup. I've never seen a hanging molt and hadn't imagined it was an option.

 

[clockworkorange]

Hi E&A,

thank you for pointing out the molt and egg "issues"! Very interesting to see how different set-up would lead to similar successful rearing

Cheers,

Mika

 

[J Morningstar]

Hey guys, thanx for replying. Knowing there's someone who has experience with these beasties helps a lot. I'll do my best with the enclosure and when it's done I'll just have to catch some, which shouldn't be too difficult. One day after gaining some experience I'd sure like to get my hands on one of the asian varieties but for now I plan to stick to local species. Thanx again I'll be sure to post any updates.

I've only seen pictures of thre Giant Asian variety once.... they really are monsterous in appearance, would love to see them in the hobby someday. Kinda like this guy..

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Scut...05&tbnw=179&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:195,i:18

 

[Gorazd]

I've only seen pictures of thre Giant Asian variety once.... they really are monsterous in appearance, would love to see them in the hobby someday. Kinda like this guy..

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Scut...05&tbnw=179&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:195,i:18

That's exactly the one I had in mind. Suppose it's thereuopoda longicornis / clunifera or something closely related. Whatever it is, it's one of the most awesome pedes out there. One of these days...
I wonder if there's a special procedure for importing these.

thank you Elytra and Antenna for the tip and for making information available for everyone in your books and magazines.

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

That's exactly the one I had in mind. Suppose it's thereuopoda longicornis / clunifera or something closely related. Whatever it is, it's one of the most awesome pedes out there. One of these days...
I wonder if there's a special procedure for importing these.

thank you Elytra and Antenna for the tip and for making information available for everyone in your books and magazines.

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?153614-Scutigera-centipedes
There were some imports of monster scutigerid species a few years back (see above link for one AB member's photos of one of the imports) and at least one person got a number of young from a wild female that laid eggs. I bought one of the babies but it never molted and nobody else had any luck getting them to maturity. They're probably not that difficult (the one I got may have been damaged) but you'd need to start out with a good number.

Thanks! (Sometimes people literally yell at me here for not posting the complete texts of all the books as forum posts any time they ask a question so it's great to hear when someone appreciates the labor of love that goes into the printed literature.)

 

[Travis K]

I know a guy in China that told me he could get me a good number but $900 to do it legally and the risk of the shipment dying in transit has prevented me from committing.

 

[Gorazd]

Damn, 900$? for one centipede? Then again, by the time I get some experience with the coleoptratas, I just might be able to afford the asian variety. Maybe there's a way to up the chances of them surviving transport. Just a thought. If I win the lottery anytime soon, I'll be sure to give your friend from China a call. Thanx anyway.

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

Damn, 900$?

I'm sure it's just a few dollars for 1 centipede but most of that money would go to import and inspection fees and then some to shipping costs. The centipede is the cheapest part so I'm sure he was talking about getting a few dozen of them (with nearly all the cost not being the centipedes).

 

[Greg Pelka]

Here's a sketch of nice enclosure

 

[beetleman]

now that's a awesome setup! lot's of humidity........what more can you ask for

 

[Gorazd]

Hey Greg, appreciate the humorous touch. They seem to agree with you 'cause every pede I've caught was either in the bath tub or in the sink. It does have a couple of down sides thou - no way to keep 'em confined to that room only, aaand my gf really hates sharing the bathroom with other creatures (which doesn't bother me too much). For example, yesterday I was taking a shower and noticed an unusually large gecko staring at me from some 30cm away. We looked at each other for a while, I finished taking a shower, went out and forgot about it. Just five minutes later a loud scream reminded me that I forgot to tell her about the reptilian visitor. With pedes it's a 100 times worse. Maybe if I had a spare bathroom just for them...

 

[Gorazd]

to close this, as advised by a friend, I decided to get a box of some special kind of plastic (can't remember the name right now) and ditch the glass aquarium. The plastic stays translucent a lot longer, requires much less cleaning and weighs next to nothing. will post pics when I get the boxes. yeah, forgot to mention that in the meantime I decided to get a sc. subspinipes so now I need two boxes.

 

[Moon Mom]

I wonder if you had any luck with your House Centipedes? I've been very interested in keeping these! My old house had plenty roaming wild, which the whole house enjoyed, but my new house doesn't have any, a problem I need to solve. Anyway, I got one from a neighbor a few months ago and put it in small vertical enclosure I use for tarantual slings. It was eating, molted, and the one day died. It was not full grown. Today, a friend gave me huge one she found in her bathtub! I've got in a 10 gallon bioactive aquarium with plants. I'm misting one side of the tank heavily. I put in some pinhead crickets and the new centipede grabbed on right away! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one. If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.

 

[TheHouseof21pairs]

Scutigera Cleopatra or commonly called “house centipede” belonging to the order of Scutigeromorpha. It’s originally from the Mediterranean region but now diffused world wide. It’s a carnivorous species like Scolopendromorphae and it feeds mostly on nocturnal insects like moths, termites, stink bugs, crix and so forward but it’ll feed on anything domestic in houses. They born with 4 legs. They get 1 pair after first moult and 2 pairs every other one until they reach 15 pairs. They are very very skittish and hardy you’ll catch them eating. I don’t know anything about common living...but I never found 2 scutigera together. They’re not very demanding husbandry wise.
They live happily in a small little plastic box with some substrate like coco fibre and some moss to hide under or a little cork chip o bark. Mist every few days don’t go crazy they’re quite hardy. As long as is damp they’ll do the finest. (I’ll post a pic of my little fella rescued a couple of months ago with missing legs). Eating prekilled crix and seems to be doing ok till the next moult when it will hopefully recover.

Some species found in South Asia or Borneo are humongous compared to our common cleopatra hence more aggressive and more venomous.
Take care

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

I wonder if you had any luck with your House Centipedes? I've been very interested in keeping these! My old house had plenty roaming wild, which the whole house enjoyed, but my new house doesn't have any, a problem I need to solve. Anyway, I got one from a neighbor a few months ago and put it in small vertical enclosure I use for tarantual slings. It was eating, molted, and the one day died. It was not full grown. Today, a friend gave me huge one she found in her bathtub! I've got in a 10 gallon bioactive aquarium with plants. I'm misting one side of the tank heavily. I put in some pinhead crickets and the new centipede grabbed on right away! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one. If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.

Maybe the first one was bad luck. They are really easy to rear and keep but can be dried out far more easily than most tarantula s'lings. It doesn't harm them to reduce ventilation so you don't dry them out. They hatch out with eight legs and look very much like a pinhead.