Scoly
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
- Messages
- 488
I found one of my baby Scolopendra cingulata floating beely-up in its water dish. Now I already knew centipedes survive drowning, had it been any other animal and I would have assumed it was dead.
It was lifeless, but I laid it out on kitchen towel, and after about 10 minutes its legs started twitching. Over the next 20-30 min it did all sorts of crazy body contortions (which I filmed, but haven't uploaded anywhere). And about an hour later it took a cricket, and was promptly renamed Little Pablo Jesus (It was Little Pablo before - I let my friends name my centipedes, makes them feel better about coming round)
But I'm slightly concerned that it managed to do this in the first place! The pede is about 4cm long, and the water dish is a small water bottle lid. There is no way it fell in there and simply failed to crawl its way out, it's longer than the lid is wide.
Could it have been trying to cool down, or re-hydrate, and passed out by accident? The jar is in a cupboard that is on the warm side, but there were damp spots accessible under the soil and plastic sheet where it usually hangs out.
Could it have gone into the water knowing it might be there a long time because it would survive anyway? I've heard anecdotal reports of Lithobus sp staying motionless in the bottom of a water bucket for over a week and come back to life (I won't fully believe that till I see it).
I've removed the water dish for now and just making sure the moist spots are really wet while the rest of the jar is dryer.
It was lifeless, but I laid it out on kitchen towel, and after about 10 minutes its legs started twitching. Over the next 20-30 min it did all sorts of crazy body contortions (which I filmed, but haven't uploaded anywhere). And about an hour later it took a cricket, and was promptly renamed Little Pablo Jesus (It was Little Pablo before - I let my friends name my centipedes, makes them feel better about coming round)
But I'm slightly concerned that it managed to do this in the first place! The pede is about 4cm long, and the water dish is a small water bottle lid. There is no way it fell in there and simply failed to crawl its way out, it's longer than the lid is wide.
Could it have been trying to cool down, or re-hydrate, and passed out by accident? The jar is in a cupboard that is on the warm side, but there were damp spots accessible under the soil and plastic sheet where it usually hangs out.
Could it have gone into the water knowing it might be there a long time because it would survive anyway? I've heard anecdotal reports of Lithobus sp staying motionless in the bottom of a water bucket for over a week and come back to life (I won't fully believe that till I see it).
I've removed the water dish for now and just making sure the moist spots are really wet while the rest of the jar is dryer.
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