New Emp. Scorpion owner

Stewjoe

Arachnosquire
Joined
Sep 4, 2010
Messages
102
Hi, I just got my first Emperor Scorpion yesterday. I'm wondering if anyone could give me a guesstimate on the age and sex? I know I need more substrate but I don't want to bother it yet and it has not started to dig.





 

SandKing

Arachnosquire
Joined
May 8, 2010
Messages
119
sorry but first of all you just can't guess its sex by the pix u posted.try to pix the pectines and someone might ID the sex of your scorp and i think its a mature about a yr coz the telson is already dark.
welcome to the hobby^_^
 

Stewjoe

Arachnosquire
Joined
Sep 4, 2010
Messages
102
OK, I heard of people being able to tell by the girth and claw size. I will try to get a better closeup with no glare. It was trying to walk up the glass for a long time yesterday but it hasn't been active yet today. I have enough coco fibre to triple the amount which should bring it to the minimum. I tried to do the false bottom thing but I did not read to put a sheet or mesh over the rocks but whatever. I just have a temporary lid right now made from a fluorescent lens cover because it was formerly a fish tank, I want to get my hands on some Plexiglas. I finally got the humidity up today by putting the heat lamp on the side instead of the top and filling the gap the lamp took from the lid. The humidity skyrocketed from 40-80 in a few hours. I think I made it too wet when it was too ventilated to bring up the humidity. I want to get another Emperor, possibly a breeder once this one is settled and have my tank optimized.
 

Stewjoe

Arachnosquire
Joined
Sep 4, 2010
Messages
102
From what I read online females have smaller pectens and males have oval shaped genital operculum. Mine appears to have both those traits which confused me. I wanted to know the age because I also read that until their mature that way of telling in unreliable.
 

gromgrom

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
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Nov 30, 2009
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1,743
your first picture is the best to sex with, especially with emps.

its pectines look female, but im not 100%. i'll let someone else have a go
 

cannabeast

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 29, 2010
Messages
143
OK, I heard of people being able to tell by the girth and claw size. I will try to get a better closeup with no glare. It was trying to walk up the glass for a long time yesterday but it hasn't been active yet today. I have enough coco fibre to triple the amount which should bring it to the minimum. I tried to do the false bottom thing but I did not read to put a sheet or mesh over the rocks but whatever. I just have a temporary lid right now made from a fluorescent lens cover because it was formerly a fish tank, I want to get my hands on some Plexiglas. I finally got the humidity up today by putting the heat lamp on the side instead of the top and filling the gap the lamp took from the lid. The humidity skyrocketed from 40-80 in a few hours. I think I made it too wet when it was too ventilated to bring up the humidity. I want to get another Emperor, possibly a breeder once this one is settled and have my tank optimized.

yeah girth and claw size is best with some other species of scorpions, but with this one, its best to look at its underside.. the pectines where everyone has been telling you to look. it doesnt help me in this picture. in the future, people will want pictures of the hairs on their pectines. its too blurry when you zoom into them on this picture. however, you can see by the shape of the opeculum above its pectines that it is a female. females have a heart shape, males have an oval shape. have no idea how old it is, so i would just assume sandking is right.

i think your false bottom should be okay as long as you dont flood him out of his top substrate. just water it a little bit when its getting low for humidity. you are off to a great start! welcome to the hobby :D
 

BAM1082

Arachnoknight
Joined
Jun 10, 2010
Messages
257
IMO the best way to ID sex on Pandinus species is to look at the genital operculum.

If its oval its a male, heart shaped female.

Its hard to tell... but from the first picture I would say you have a Male.

Get a close up of the genital operculum and the pectines.
 

gromgrom

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
1,743
IMO the best way to ID sex on Pandinus species is to look at the genital operculum.

If its oval its a male, heart shaped female.

Its hard to tell... but from the first picture I would say you have a Male.

Get a close up of the genital operculum and the pectines.
+1 for the oval shape. looks oval to me
 

Stewjoe

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Sep 4, 2010
Messages
102
It's defiantly oval looking, I thought the pectines looked too small.
 

cannabeast

Arachnosquire
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Jun 29, 2010
Messages
143
yeah she has fat hips too and looks more feminine to me. those pectines look short too.
 

Michiel

Arachnoking
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May 22, 2006
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3,478
Here we go again: It has nothing to do with claw size or the size of the animal, as size is highly variable and therefore not usefull as character.

Like others suggested, stick to comparing genital operculi and look for a basal inner tooth in the moveable finger of the chela, (a large triangular tooth on the moveable finger of the claw) only males have these.

I cannot see it very well, but from what I can see this is an adult female.
 

Stewjoe

Arachnosquire
Joined
Sep 4, 2010
Messages
102
I have had her?? a week now without it eating and i started to get concerned as I had a few crickets running around the tank. It's a good sized tank so I started to get concerned that she? could not catch the prey. I picked up a cricket with my forceps and gently set it in her claw and she happily accepted it and gobbled it down. Is this the normal way of feeding them? I would have thought they would be afraid of the forceps. I shouldn't have taken a picture and stress it but I thought it was pretty awesome.
 

Treynok

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
May 17, 2009
Messages
202
I tong-feed all of my scorpions just so I don't have uneaten cockroaches running around my enclosures. They will grab pretty much anything that gets in front of them as prey unless they think it is very large which they would really only be able to tell by an abnormal vibration. There is no harm in feeding them this way just be careful they don't grab the tongs, they don't like to let go once they grab em.

Female too even know I'm pretty sure you've agreed to that by now.
 
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