Do scorpions mate before becoming adults?

[toolrick]

Do any of you know if I would have to wait for a scorpion to become adults so they mate????

 

[calum]

Aparently subadult scorpions can mate, but I don't think they would be able to become gravid and carry it over the adult moult.


if your planning to try it I don't think it's a gonna work, best to wait until they are adults.

 

[G. Carnell]

yea


i remember my P.imperator female mating before her last moult, took the spermatophore and everything



mated again after the moult, as soon as the male was back in her tub, so cant disprove what Calum said !

 

[radicaldementia]

Yes, some (maybe all) species can become gravid before their last "maturing" molt.

I have an A. australis who is a definite sub-adult and is very very gravid. Here is a somewhat recent pic, about 2 months old. She's only about 2 inches long and doesn't have a fully fat tail yet. For a while I wasn't sure she was gravid or just in pre-molt, but she's been like this for over 5 months (she was already fat when I bought her back in may) and now I'm pretty sure I see embryos inside her. I'm hoping she'll pop in the next couple weeks.

It seems that if they're gravid, they just don't molt until after they give birth.

 

[jawlessemu]

i have a pair of deathstalkers that have mated. the female is was a sub adult and the male was adult. the female has now molted to adult and im now waiting to see if she becomes gravid

 

[~Abyss~]

I reccomend you don't mate them for another 9 months or so because we have proven that scorpions can mate before maturity, we have proven also that they can have babies before maturity but we're not sure if they can mate before and then give birth after a molt. So taht would be really cool to find out.

 

[radicaldementia]

I seriously doubt that a scorp can molt while gravid. I see either one of 2 things happening: either the scorp just doesn't molt, or it aborts the babies and then molts.

I have no real evidence other than the lack of molting in my A. australis, but it seems likely that when gravid, the biological signals that trigger molting are suppressed. This makes a lot of sense from a cellular level, there is probably a cascade of gene expression that triggers a molt, and another cascade that triggers being gravid. I bet a gene expressed while gravid inhibits expression of molting genes. But that's just a guess, who knows what could really happen.

 

[toolrick]

Thanks a lot to all of you for the repplys. Well, just to know, how often do scorpions moult? I have had a juvenile since the past 8 months and so far is has not moulted. Is this normal? Also I think it's a she.

 

[Mr. Mordax]

Are you sure it's a juvenile? What species is it?

 

[toolrick]

Chactas from Colombia.
I am sure it's a juvi because I have an adult female from the same specie.

 

[jawlessemu]

i am definetl not mating the lq's until i can either confirm or disprove wether or not the femal is gravid. i hope she does prove to b gravid. it will prove they can mate as sub adults and molt and still produce offspring

 

[Michiel]

One of my B.jacksoni females became gravid and lost all the embryo's after the adult molt. I had to mate her again after she molted. Now I wait with mating untill they are adult. (instar 6 for females of this species).