Florida Bark or S. Am C. gracilis

[Reitz]

I was reading through the Barron's book on scorpion keeping and it said that the only difference between the dangerously toxic S. American C. gracilis and it's push-over Florida cousin is size--stating that Florida Barks are slightly smaller. This seems like a sketchy ID trait at best. Are there any others? I realize that my C. gracilis is probably a WC Florida Bark, but how can one be sure?

Also, the book says that the Florida brand is probably an import. I guess that makes sense, but does that mean they were accidently brought over by human ships, or by natural means? The reason I ask is that it would seem a couple hundred years would be a very short time for evolution to take effect. I realize that venom potency is possibly dependent on enviroment, some biologists even claiming that CB scorps are less potent that wild ones. And I realize that size can be enviroment dependant, as WC Emps are consistently larger then CB ones, but at the same time, aren't parts of Florida very similar to parts of S. America? The difference between the two locals is not the same as the difference between the Jungles of Ghana and a 10 gallon tank in my closet.

Just wondering, sorry you had to read all of that!

Chris

 

[chau0046]

Well one of my females seems to be of a beluga for size(ask Dave) And the other is a little smaller. They could be from both areas or maybe the smaller one will shed!?

Mat

 

[skinheaddave]

Mat,

The beluga whale is a smaller whale and can not adequately describe the size of your larger C.gracilis.

Chris,

100 years is not necessarily a short time for evolution. Remember that we aren't talking about speciation, but merely some subtle changes. These types of variations between populations can happen relatively quickly compared to speciation events. Also, remember that these scorpions have an incredibly short generation time and this means that a couple hundred years represents around 100 overlapping generations.

As for ID traits between the two populations, I'd love to know this myself.

Cheers,
Dave