Centipedes mating, some pics

[Galapoheros]

A breeding attempt last night. I traded 3 typical colored S. h. castaneiceps the other day for a fairly large odd chestnut brown one, maybe just old but I wanted it. Turned out to be male. The third female I put in the container was interested. The male really tried to push her out of the entrance to his hide with his terminals but she pushed back, carefully. Finally she got him walking. I got some real rough vid of him spinning web with my little Coolpix camera but I can't upload it to photobucket with the junk I have. I'll probably upload it from someone else's house sometime later after I save that and other pics on to CD. Ha, the little female just wouldn't give up. I saw her pick up the spermataphore. It disappeared in a bout 5 minutes. Then it started to get a little dangerous because each of them wanted the same pad and neither would leave. I finally had to dump out the sub and remove one of them.

Male

Female

going..

going..

gone!

 

[Greg Pelka]

Congrats
From where did you know which one is M and which F?

Greg

 

[Galapoheros]

I basically just go by a hunch, kind of guess. I consider the look of the terminals and maybe the last 2 or 3 pair of legs. If they are noticeably longer looking, I lean towards it being a male when it comes to S. heros. I've never read that from someone that has proven it, it just kind of made a little sense to me when I first thought about it a while back when I was thinking about the arachnid world of diff sexes. I don't really know if there is any thing to it or not. I have a female with long terminals that I thought was a male so... Caco has Shelley's book. Maybe he says something about that in his book. Well, I have around 5 rough vid clips. I can only take one fairly long vid clip with my camera and then a real short one. I was downloading every time I got one full clip except for one time. I was pretty busy trying to catch everything that way. So I have one really short clip that I was able to upload. It's not much at all but better than nothing. I've never posted a vid clip, hope it works.

 

[P. Novak]

Great job Galapoheros! You have some good hunches! Very interesting stuff! :clap:

 

[bistrobob85]

Thanks for all the pics and infos, Galapo . I really hope it works so we can see the hole cycle from mating to the eggs hatching!!!! Keep up the good work!!!!

phil.

 

[Hedorah99]

Awesome :clap:

 

[Arachnomaniak]

Definitely looking forward to seeing the videos! Centipede breeding tends to be a "mysterious art" (and a dangerous one!) so any information provided from first hand experience is very helpful!

 

[MaueR]

Bravo bravo bravo!

good job IMO ;]