- Joined
- Jul 21, 2002
- Messages
- 1,700
LOL!!:clap:
Could you elaborate on what species you have kept? I think that would help the discussion.
Why were they boring? If all you want is aggressive and challenging, and if the species you kept were these things, then why were they boring? ( I'm guessing it was the lack of activity and intersting behaviour--which you won't find in L.q. either. )
L.q. care requirements are very simple, so you won't find a challenge there. There really isn't a challenge in keeping L.q. except overcoming the danger level and being safe, and if that is challenging/ difficult for you then you shouldn't have one!
What I would advise is buying a species that has a sensitivity to climate. Temperature and humidity levels can be difficult to maintain simultaneously, especially if you throw in a need for high ventilation. This is a challenge you can take on without danger to yourself. Also, providing a proper habitat for multiple/ arboreal species, accomplishing a successful breeding, raising scorplings to maturity, maintaining a cannibalism-free colony are all challenges that you can take on instead of challening yourself on a safety issue. Sure, keeping a dangerous scorpion requires constant vigilance and caution, but it isn't something that you just break into: you need to work up to high venom scorps, so that proper safety measures are second-nature, and not really a "challenge." You work up from lower venom scorps so that if you make a mistake while learning proper caution, it won't be as serious a threat to your life. By the time you can responsibly keep an L.q., being safe is no longer new and unfamiliar to you, you just need to pay attention and practice what you've learned.
--The mental thrill of keeping a deadly animal, that's what. Lots of people come here with the idea that they'd love to have a deadly scorp, because "it would be awesome to have something that dangerous" etc. This keeping for the thrill is something we HIGHLY guard against in incoming "hobbyists," because it is not a responsible attitude or reason to keep these animals, and because thrill-keepers have a MUCH higher risk of getting themselves and/or others stung, thereby endangering the hobby. I guess what I'm getting from you is that although you know the scorp is inactive/ boring, you find it fascinating. You say that its appearance is a factor, but you admit that "L.q for me would fall under interests," not beauty, so the only factor left to make you interested in L.q. is how dangerous it is, which as I've said, is a BAD reason to get a scorp.
Then why do you want an aggressive and dangerous scorpion, and why have your previous scorpions bored you? Hadrurus are, by all accounts, an interesting and enjoyable group of scorps.
Again, why? How old are you, what scorps have you kept previously? Starting out in dangerous scorps by getting an L.q. is like learning to swim in a pool full of sharks: it's a crash course, and you'd better get it right. It is, in my mind, equally ridiculous to think you can safely keep the most venomous scorp in the world, without having had any experience in safe "hot" husbandry. If you want a defensive, interesting, and husbandry-wise challenging scorpion, you should try Heterometrus, the non-exilicauda Centruroides, Hadrurus, Ophistophthalmus, Babycurus, Scorpio maurus species, or if you really must have some stigma of danger, Buthacus lephtochelys nitzani.
