Full life cycle successes?

Mister Internet

Big Meanie Doo Doo Head :)
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Hey All,

I am curious... a bunch of us pede keepers are having boatloads of trouble with little baby pedes suffering unexplained deaths... mortality seems to be abnormally high. I was wondering how many of you hardcore T keepers have actually successfully raised a sling from 2nd or 3rd instar through maturity, male or female? I know for some of the slower-growing species, this could take 4 or 5 years...

Anyway, if you could post your general ratio of good to bad luck with raising them full lifecycle, I'd appreciate it... I'm curious if other invert families have the high mortality of pedes... :)
 

Code Monkey

Arachnoemperor
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There was a thread not too long ago about a similar topic: http://www.arachnopets.com/arachnoboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1684

I've raised some 2nd and 3rd instar Ts into juveniles, but haven't been at this sling raising business long enough to have any matured yet. OTOH, once Ts get to juvenile size, short of disease/bad moult or extreme neglect, they're not going anywhere so I expect that they'll all reach adult hood. I've got juveniles of A. avicularia, A. versicolor, A. geniculata, C. cyaneopubescens, B. "annitha", and C. fasciatum that all started out with me as 2nd or 3rd instars. Out of 35 total, I've only lost 3: 1 to disease, 1 to shipping trauma, and 1 to unknown causes. Them's pretty good results as far as I'm concerned. I've never lost a larger specimen to anything other than disease/old age. At the same time, I don't keep "known" difficult species because I don't want that hassle.

As for pedes, I think pedes just aren't as well understood as Ts, nor is there the choice of species. For instance, although I think almost everyone of us who ever got any has killed SHC babies, the CRH I have is the Usambara of pedelings. If we had 100+ pede species to choose from the situation would be more like with Ts. The general keeper would stick to genera/species that were well known for hardiness and tolerance of different conditions and others would be relegated to "experienced keeper" status like T. blondi is with Ts.
 

Mister Internet

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Code,

yeah, those were pretty much my thoughts... I am just trying to make the mental distinction between the two. You know, why T's have hundreds or in some cases thousands of spiderlings at a time, but many or most seem to survive well in captivity, yet pedes have maybe 75 at the most pedelings, but their survival rate is abysmal. You would think that the reason T's have so many more slings is becuse they're more fragile or more prone to death, but they seem to stand up pretty well. Pedes are at the top of the food chain, yet their babies seem to be a crapshoot. I just don't understand the differences in survivability... is it environmental? Habitat? The fact that pedes know better than we do what they need and we just haven't caught on yet? I'm just trying to make sense of it all... :)
 

Rookie

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I think i received Peso on his/her third instar. I don't want to lose him/her, I think I'd be really upset if that were to happen. That's why I get so nervous and concerned sometimes. I sometimes show my friends full grown Pulchra photos and I say 'that's peso in about 4 years'. I plan on succeeding in raising Peso from infancy to old age. But i know that there are obstacles along the way.
Paul
 

Tangled WWWeb

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Over the past ten years I have raised quite a few T's to maturity from at least the 3rd instar. I have had some spiderling deaths (most of them during my earlier more uninformed years in the hobby) but in general I would have to say that my success ratio has been pretty good. Within the past two years, I've had well over a hundred spiders under my care. Approximately 60 of them started as very small spiderlings with about half of them having matured already. In that period of time, I have only had 3 spiderlings die unexplainably ; a T. blondi, an X immanis, and a G. rosea. Two of the three aforementioned species are often considered difficult species ( I don't know what happened with the rosie).

I have raised a T. blondi male from a very small spiderling to adulthood and shipped him proudly to John Hoke. While nothing came of this pairing ( John's female molted), I couldn't help but feel a certain sense of accomplishment when I was told of how he handled himself with the ladies :) .

While I don't currently have any centipedes (wife issues) I am inclined to agree with Code Monkey on that one. There just doesn't seem to be an adequate amount of information out there.
 

Cronoss

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pedes

I've been keeping pedes longer than t's.
once i bought 5 S.gigantia pedelings. 3 died for no good reason.
the other two made it to about 4" then 1 died(can't figure out why)the other is now 7".
1 out of 5 not a good raito.

t's are much easier



do you know how to sex pedes?
I've just been guessing.i got 1 good mating.just luck

Bryan
 

Mister Internet

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Re: pedes

Originally posted by mmmmdonuts
I've been keeping pedes longer than t's.
once i bought 5 S.gigantia pedelings. 3 died for no good reason.
the other two made it to about 4" then 1 died(can't figure out why)the other is now 7".
1 out of 5 not a good raito.

t's are much easier

do you know how to sex pedes?
I've just been guessing.i got 1 good mating.just luck

Bryan
Bryan,

Fellow pede keeper! If you EVER need to give that gigantea a home, please call me first. ;)

There is no external sexual dimorphism between the sexes in the Scolopendramorpha order, as far as I understand it. There are some very minute and hard to observe diffs in a couple species, allegedly, but nothing standard like dichotomous genital or body structure.

I'm curious to know how you did your breeding... would you mind going to the Myriopod forum and starting a new thread there detailing what you did and how, for the benefits of the other pede keepers on the board? I'd love to talk about it... thanks!
 
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