Is My Asian Forest Scorpion (Heterometrus Spinifer) Okay?

[MadzBear]

Basic Info:
I got my scorpion from an expo around August 2021 and was told he is fully grown.
I've been feeding him mainly mealworms or superworms, though he's very temperamental about eating and hasn't been eating much the past few months if anything at all.
His enclosure usually stays between 70-80°F and humidity around 60-80%.

The Problem:
Sometime last month I noticed that my scorpion started to look bloated, like his exoskeleton is cracking at the sides and now he doesn't seem to be using his hind legs. I'm having a hard time trying to find a place that can look at him for medical help
Does anyone know what could be wrong with him, if anything, or know of a place in Maryland that can work with scorpions??

Pictures:

 

[coolnweird]

Nothing looks worrying in the photos, but not using the back legs is unusual. Could you get a video of the animal moving, and photos of the whole enclosure?

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

The bloating just looks like fat scorpion to me. I agree the back legs not moving properly sounds like a potential problem. I definitely would NOT worry about feeding this animal - they can go a loooooooonnnnnng time without food, especially when they're this fat. Videos showing the concerning leg movement would indeed be helpful - it's hard to say anything without seeing what it actually looks like.

Unfortunately there are vanishingly few people in the world who can treat arachnids medically, and very few things that can go wrong with arachnids can even *be* treated (at least as far as our current knowledge extends) - generally speaking all you can do it provide a safe and appropriate environment for them and hope for the best.

 

[MadzBear]

Could you get a video of the animal moving, and photos of the whole enclosure?

Videos showing the concerning leg movement would indeed be helpful

I can get a video of him walking around and what his enclosure looks like a little later today. He was pretty grumpy when I first took the pictures of him so I didn't want to bother him too much the other day.

 

[Collin Clary]

Well for starters, the species you have is Heterometrus silenus, not H. spinifer.

I can't determine the sex from those pictures, but gravid females will often become sluggish and sometimes have difficulties with locomotion.

I will also caution you against feeding superworms at the moment. There is a densovirus that's been killing off many superworm colonies. I've also lost about a quarter of my scorpion collection after feeding them superworms that had the disease. (I obviously didn't know at the time.) Many animals seemed to have severe difficulties with locomotion and motor control. Some juveniles failed to molt, and I've had females of several species give birth prematurely and die shortly after. Other individuals seemed unaffected or the symptoms were short lived.

I don't know for a fact that the deaths are related to the virus, but I don't think it's a coincidence that I lost a quarter of my collection within months of feeding infected superworms.