Centruroides gracilis

[GordoOldman]

Question for those keeping the species.

How many keep individuals from localities outside the US?

Fast growing and maturing species easily reproduced, how many of you raise multiple generations (F5, F6 or more?)

For those who do, what are you seeing on your two male types as a ratio in consecutive generations? What are your average lengths seen in "late bloomers"?

Also... for my own curiosity I post the venter of an adult C. gracilis, just wanting to see opinions on what sex this is by viewers.

 

[pannaking22]

I think at least for US keepers they're only keeping the ones found in the US. I had a couple generations before and I noticed in general that they got a little smaller, though I don't believe any reached adulthood faster. It'd be interesting to see how they look several generations in. The general trend tends to be smaller I think.

 

[GordoOldman]

Thank you for the reply.
What was the locality of the animals you kept? (Florida?)
So you did not notice any males reach a final instar more rapidly than others?
What was your average number of days for females vs. males to reach maturity? What were approximate sizes of your adult males, adult females?
Where did you stop rearing and breeding the consecutive young? (F2, F3?)

How many phenotypes were expressed in your group? I am recording phenotypic variations amd expressions and will be including a new undescribed phenotype that was an adult female found in FL.

Lots of questions I realize, I am currently writing up a revised complete life cycle history of this species and I value others observations. More data is good data.

I have F5 animals currently popping with my F6 generations now. My data set is large as currently I am working with multiple US localities and very few localities from outside the US. Combined with a large number of individuals. Unfortunately my data sets are biased for US localities currently, as finding non US locality individuals is difficult (as you mentioned) in the US.

I have two distinct "types" of males produced...males that mature faster, and males that mature slower ( fairly consistent with findings first recorded: Francke, O. F. and S. K. Jones. 1982 . The life history of Centruroides gracilis (Scorpiones, Buthidae).
J. Arachnol., 10 :223-239)
The male "late bloomers" tend to be very large adult animals. I include an adult male from an F4 group, one of the "late bloomers".


Thanks again for your reply. I hope we will have many more.

 

[GeorgeOfTheJungle7]

I see you've got some kind of research going on, anyway I can help?
I can monitor my 4th instar slings if you want? I'm thinking about going back to school to become a biologist while focusing on entemology. So this might help me too. Plus it's fun

Locality Veracruz, Mexico