molt/feeding pics

[Galapoheros]

A lot of molts the last week or so. Here's one of the CB S. h. castaneiceps molting yesterday. A nice size for being about a month short of being one year old.

premolt

Same pede after molt.

A different CB pede having it's first meal after it's last molt.

An adult

 

[cacoseraph]

nice. that guys is a very decent size for just under a year old. makes me think that they could potentially start reproducing at like 3-4 years.


edit:

actually, if that pede on your hand molts in like 7-8 months and then once again at like 2.5 years or age i wouldn't be *that* suprised if it could breed. that thing looks like it is almost 5"/13cm BL?

 

[P. Novak]

Great pics and congrats on the molts Galo! You got some awesome centipedes!

 

[Galapoheros]

Thanks. I wish it was 5"! I don't have huge hands. Oh no, I think people are on to me, "Look how biiiig this thing is in my hand!" haha. I haven't actually measured it but I think it's around 4", maybe even less. Since they are so easy to take care of, I'm thinking of trying to hang on to 20 or more of the babies indefinitely and mess around doing breeding experiments, checking in with the parthenogenesis thing, size, longevity... I read one report of 20 years, but I'd like to check that out myself. They really don't require much time so maybe I could do it. Anyway, throwing in a pic of one of the orange legged ones that just molted today. In case anybody is wondering, I found a female and a male in an area that apparently has mostly S. h. castaneiceps that have very light legs, almost white. I came across 3 in the area and none had orange legs. Since they are harder to find, I kept most of the light legged babies that came from the female. That's why they might look a little diff to some people.

 

[James H]

I found a female and a male in an area that apparently has mostly S. h. castaneiceps that have very light legs, almost white.

Gala,
Im sure that this has been covered before but how are you able to tell the difference in gender in the castaneiceps? And do those visable differences cover all of the heros subspecies? I would like to be able to tell the difference in the two that I have and maybe try to breed arizonaensis sometime.

 

[ragnew]

Cool pics Gala! It's safe to say I've fell in love with my castaniceps! Such cool looking pedes! :clap:

 

[Galapoheros]

Yeah, they are pretty cool. I just flip a coin and hope to get lucky if I put two together. I've only observed one mating. I do look for a really narrow last tergite when trying to guess male, but I don't really know how to tell for sure. I have 4 I know are females. I'll take a pic of the last couple of tergites on each one and maybe post them sometime later. Here's another one with a lot of dark pigment on it's head. Pretty different looking for an S. h. castaneiceps. The mother had a lot of dark pigment on it's head too. I fully expect it to have these colors as an adult. I have a few more like this from the same batch. It kind of looks like a sea-sick typical looking one.