molt time

[Jormungand]

some of my pedes molted in this summer, and share some pics ,hope you like it

scolopendra gigantea

scolopendra galapagoensis
this one have over 30cm and is the largest pede i have ever seen

scolopendra sp "robusta"

and this is a normally color type scolopendra sp "robusta", molted in last year

thanks:sarcasm:

 

[Scolopendras]

so sexy! love them all. Now go get S. V. Viridicornis or S. V. Nigra to finish your ultimate centipede collection.

 

[Jormungand]

so sexy! love them all. Now go get S. V. Viridicornis or S. V. Nigra to finish your ultimate centipede collection.

i've got a s.v.nigra, but it have not molt about one year and a half, and still eat food every week

 

[Scolopendras]

woah! That's a great looking S.V.V!

 

[Galapoheros]

Woohooo!, thanks for the pics. This site seems to be dying, people don't post much anymore. The Scolopendra galapagoensis over here is huge also, I officially measured it, it's between 28 and 29 centimeters. That's when it was walking around and took a pic next to a tape. It might stretch to 30 when sitting still, hard to measure pedes. On a side note, while these are called "galapagoensis" in the hobby, I'm not convinced they are galapagoensis. Their antennae key out as galapagoensis but characteristics of the legs key out as gigantea. I think there are still some ID problems to be worked out, and maybe those features aren't that important. The antennae characteristics may not matter much because smooth antennomere count increases with age on these and I'm wondering if there may be more or less smooth antennomeres in specimens of the same species depending on location. I sure would like to know what is going on there, it's kind of frustrating. I'm not making any claims, just saying the ID of these doesn't fit scientific documentation I've seen.

 

[Jormungand]

Woohooo!, thanks for the pics. This site seems to be dying, people don't post much anymore. The Scolopendra galapagoensis over here is huge also, I officially measured it, it's between 28 and 29 centimeters. That's when it was walking around and took a pic next to a tape. It might stretch to 30 when sitting still, hard to measure pedes. On a side note, while these are called "galapagoensis" in the hobby, I'm not convinced they are galapagoensis. Their antennae key out as galapagoensis but characteristics of the legs key out as gigantea. I think there are still some ID problems to be worked out, and maybe those features aren't that important. The antennae characteristics may not matter much because smooth antennomere count increases with age on these and I'm wondering if there may be more or less smooth antennomeres in specimens of the same species depending on location. I sure would like to know what is going on there, it's kind of frustrating. I'm not making any claims, just saying the ID of these doesn't fit scientific documentation I've seen.

you can see my gigantea have 8-9 smooth antennomeres in the pic, but it even not bigger than 15cm before this molt.
and the galapagoensis have 5-6 smooth antennomeres in the pic, i have keep it about 2 years and it had molted 3 times, but i not find out any change with its antennae. i have another galapagoensis about 20cm and its antennae is same as the large one
btw, i more interest in "robusta" what is it， i really can not find out any different from galapagoensis except colors

 

[Galapoheros]

Yeah I saw that with the "gigantea" but when did you start looking to see. And I see the "robusta" has about 4-5(?). My baby "galapagoensis" started out with around 3-4 and now some are around 6, it's very slow and seems to almost stop after they get on the big side. I still have 90 of them, happened with every one of them. When I got my adult, if I remember correctly, it had 5, now it has seven after several molts, going from about 6 inches to barely over 11". So I don't know how important this feature is. Also according to sci documents, galapagoensis doesn't have femoral spurs or only on one or two pair of legs. I see spurs on all the legs there in your galapo pic that I can see, like the ones I have, it's "supposed" to be a gigantea feature. I saw a good pic of what is called galapagoensis on the island and I can't see any femoral spurs on it. Still some things unanswered. As for that "robusta", it's weird, it's hard to tell but I don't see femoral spurs on the legs! Do these femoral spurs really matter(?) If they do, maybe it's a light form of galapagoensis, oh man, confusing! I'd try to take some good close-up pics and see if you can see femoral spurs. The research info is here, you will see how things don't add up. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03946975.2000.10531129 I can't help but question claims after seeing these pedes. Could be we see some updated material later, who knows.

What I would do is later sex out the pedes with and without femoral spurs, hoping there is a male and female, then see if they would mate, but then would break it up right before the female picked up the package. I'd only do it if I had a bunch of pedes though in case one or both were killed. I might even let the breeding finish to confirm it. In the science world, if they mated, they would be considered the same species, that's what a formal scientist told me but then the line isn't so clear sometimes.

 

[Jormungand]

Yeah I saw that with the "gigantea" but when did you start looking to see. And I see the "robusta" has about 4-5(?). My baby "galapagoensis" started out with around 3-4 and now some are around 6, it's very slow and seems to almost stop after they get on the big side. I still have 90 of them, happened with every one of them. When I got my adult, if I remember correctly, it had 5, now it has seven after several molts, going from about 6 inches to barely over 11". So I don't know how important this feature is. Also according to sci documents, galapagoensis doesn't have femoral spurs or only on one or two pair of legs. I see spurs on all the legs there in your galapo pic that I can see, like the ones I have, it's "supposed" to be a gigantea feature. I saw a good pic of what is called galapagoensis on the island and I can't see any femoral spurs on it. Still some things unanswered. As for that "robusta", it's weird, it's hard to tell but I don't see femoral spurs on the legs! Do these femoral spurs really matter(?) If they do, maybe it's a light form of galapagoensis, oh man, confusing! I'd try to take some good close-up pics and see if you can see femoral spurs. The research info is here, you will see how things don't add up. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03946975.2000.10531129 I can't help but question claims after seeing these pedes. Could be we see some updated material later, who knows.

What I would do is later sex out the pedes with and without femoral spurs, hoping there is a male and female, then see if they would mate, but then would break it up right before the female picked up the package. I'd only do it if I had a bunch of pedes though in case one or both were killed. I might even let the breeding finish to confirm it. In the science world, if they mated, they would be considered the same species, that's what a formal scientist told me but then the line isn't so clear sometimes.

ok, i am not see any baby galapagoensis sofar, so i really don't know how their antennae will be when they are growing. i keep some small "robusta" since they were born,they are over 12cm now and have 4-5 smooth antennomeres without change, same as my adult "robusta"
still not sure what is the "femoral spurs" you mean, could you see the femoral spurs in next pics? are they same as my galapagoensis? or maybe they are all gigantea?

 

[Galapoheros]

My computer crashed and so I lost all those pics but I had uploaded some to photobucket. Here's a baby "galapagoensis", what we call it in the hobby. It's hard to see but you can still see that there are 3-4 smooth antennomeres. They all started out like this and now have around 6 smooth antennomeres, they are around 6 inches long now. My adult has 7 and looks like it's creeping on to the next one. I circled examples of femoral spurs in your pic here, spikes at the joints. It was brought to my attention when Orin M. saw a pic I had, he had read the info in the link to the pdf I posted. The info is at the bottom of page 160 and the top of 161 but I copied it here;

"The key anatomical features of these chilopods are the number of sparsely hirsute antennomeres and the number of legs with femoral spurs. Scolopendra gigantea has 7-10 sparsely hirsute antennomeres, proximal to those that are densely hirsute, and usually numerous legs with femoral spurs. The latter number is highly variable and difficult to determine because most specimens are missing several legs, but it ranges as high as 15. Scolopendra galapagoensis, however, has from 4-7 sparsely hirsute antennomeres and only the first pair of legs with one femoral spur apiece."

As you can see the ones we have have many femoral spurs, on almost all the legs, the claim is this is a gigantea feature so, something is not working out. I just thought you might think it was interesting. The truth is of course that I don't know what's going on, it's possible scientists don't have it figured out yet, so maybe nobody knows for sure, maybe not 'yet' anyway. Maybe some scientists there in South America know, I tried to contact some about it but they didn't reply. Those are very clear pics, what kind of camera are you using? I've also seen some cell phone pics that are really good, always getting better and better.

 

[Jormungand]

ok,i know the femoral spurs， so far i never see any S.A pede without this feature, even viridicornis or angulata. maybe some pede from different S.A area really have no femoral spurs, thanks for the info
about camera, i use a DSLR with macro lens and macro flash. yeah, some cell phone really can take a good pic but it can not take a macro photo, even you use some normally lens or flash it still hard to see some detail
so, try to get a macro lens and macro flash , that is not very expensive, and the camera not important, you can use a mirrorless cameras or a old type DSLR

 

[Galapoheros]

I'll spend the money some day on a new camera. There was somebody in a store that was showing me a picture of a lizard and they zoomed in to part of the lizard. I said, "wow that's pretty clear, what camera did you use?" He said he used his phone, said he bought it because of the good pics it takes. But yeah I'll get a DSL, still better, not all that other junk stuffed into it. I know what you mean, I see other pedes with femoral spurs too, I was just comparing it to galapagoensis, like this one in the pic. http://galapagosblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/c8-1306-janette-schubert.jpg It's not a good macro shot but still, when I zoom in, I can't see spurs just like the research says galapagoensis lacks, compared to gigantea. I just keep an open mind with it and question things. It looks like your "normally color type scolopendra sp 'robusta' " doesn't have spurs but I can't tell for sure from the pic, can you tell?

 

[Jormungand]

this is the "normally color type scolopendra sp 'robusta' ", the same one, you can see it still have femoral spurs , but the pic of galapagoensis , i first see this color type, maybe it is from other S.A area and really different from others we have ever seen