Euscorpius tergestinus mortality

[Joey Spijkers]

Hey everyone,
a while back, I purchased E. tergestinus i2 scorplings. I ordered 50, but only 19 of them survived shipping. I’ve had adults before and they did wel on moderate humidity, so that’s how I originally kept these slings as well. I had quite a bit of die off so I increased humidity. From that moment, they did better, but there’s still some die off. I’ve kept them individually from the beginning and I feed chopped up mealworm pieces. I now have 9 left. Does anyone have tips for me? I would like to get as many of these 9 to adulthood as possible. It’s supposed to be an easy species, but they seem to do the worst for me.

 

[Lubed Tweezer]

That's a bummer !
Since the shipping cost you more than half of them, I suspect that period also damaged the remaining 19 ?
i2 are really tiny and fragile, maybe extended rough handling / heavy vibrations damaged their internals ?
Are you sure the dead ones are really dead ? (since this species is able to hibernate)
I only have adult E Italicus myself (very similar), they are perfectly able to survive at 20-22°C but do better at 25-27°C.

 

[Joey Spijkers]

Thanks for your input! They were actually dead. I’ve had E. tergestinus and E. italicus hibernating before, but these ones were clearly dead. I’m not sure if it’s still the shipping damage. I’ve had them for quite a while now, and most of them have already molted to i3. I just think some environmental factors are not ideal. The room they are kept in naturally stays warmer, especially now that it starts to warm up outside. It’s now 22-27 C in the room, in the winter months around 20. I don’t think it’s the temperature either, but I will keep monitoring it. Thanks.

 

[Lubed Tweezer]

Last summer I found out that my adult E italicus enjoys eating wingless wasps/yellow jackets.
I catch any wasp that accidentally enters my house during summer, pull off the wings and put it in the E italicus enclosure.
It even prefers a wasp over a cricket, a hollowed out rear part of the wasp is all that is left behind the next morning....
Another property of E italicus and E germanus is that they always likes to sit near it's drinking/water area.
You can read this document (german language) and see how they live in Austria.
I learned a thing or two reading this.

 

[Joey Spijkers]

Thanks for the useful tip! Although my German isn’t the best, it’s good enough to understand. I will definitely read through it.

 

[Lubed Tweezer]

Veel lees plezier, er zitten ook plaatjes bij !

 

[Joey Spijkers]

Hahah dank je, had even geen Nederlands verwacht