Death Out of nowhere

[Sarkhan42]

Not terribly long ago I acquired my first pede, a Scolopendra heros pedeling, and up until this weekend he has been doing great, eating well, burrowing, coming out at night to hunt, etc. he had one side of his cage moist, one side a little dryer, both with plenty of sub to burrow in, a water dish, and a cork bark slab to hide under. Temperatures were also kept very consistent and suitable for all of my inverts. I opened his cage this morning to an unbelievable stench, with him in his water dish completely submerged, 100% dead, color already leaching out of him, when I had just seen him drinking from the same dish completely fine on Friday. I had known Ts to not have any drowning issues when young, as that's what I have primarily kept, so I assumed the dish was fine, was this my mistake or the fragile and fickle nature of these very young animals? I just want some certainty on what went wrong and how I can fix it for the future.

 

[Leeum]

I'm quite new to the pede hobby myself however I've done extensive reading online, and I've read countless times from multiple perspectives that pedes (more specifically pedelings) are simply "Luck of the draw" meaning they will die off for apparently no reason.

However if you do believe yours drowned, could you provide some more info? A screenshot of the enclosure & water dish perhaps? Do you have a measuring tool for humidity? If yes, I would love to know what humidity you kept it at.

How big was the pling?

PS. Very sorry for your loss!

 

[Sarkhan42]

I'm quite new to the pede hobby myself however I've done extensive reading online, and I've read countless times from multiple perspectives that pedes (more specifically pedelings) are simply "Luck of the draw" meaning they will die off for apparently no reason.

However if you do believe yours drowned, could you provide some more info? A screenshot of the enclosure & water dish perhaps? Do you have a measuring tool for humidity? If yes, I would love to know what humidity you kept it at.

How big was the pling?

PS. Very sorry for your loss!

This should illustrate the dish and pede size, taken right after discovery. I unfortunately already cleaned everything out because the smell was unbelievable, so I don't have an exact read on humidity. The only thing smaller for water I could've found would be monopoly houses but I don't have any currently.

 

[Sarkhan42]

I've begun to think that much like with Ts found dead in their water bowls, something else caused the death and it gravitated to water as it was dying. Not much to do about it now I guess.

 

[Leeum]

Thanks for sharing.

Not quite sure what could've happened without looking closer at the carcass, as you said it was drinking fine previously so drowning doesn't make a lot of sense in this case especially as the pling is larger than the dish.

Again sorry for your loss!