Raising a giant

[Nanotrev]

I'm making sketches of what my enclosure for the scorpions could look like. Each enclosure should have a live plant and should be slightly larger than a ten gallon aquarium although I would like them to be larger. It's possible I could construct or buy structures similar to those found in a grocery store and place them in isles to save space while allowing an overall larger enclosure size. Eco earth will be used as the substrate in each of them.

Another option I've considered is instead of buying many low-wattage bulbs for each cage is buying several large wattage bulbs to heat many enclosures from above and raise the ambient temperature of the entire room. They'll be infa-red bulbs with the regular light fixtures providing a day/night cycle.

I imagine this will be a mammoth undertaking with many hours of work involved and high expenses. I hope it will all pay off in the end with me ending up with P. imperator specimens bred to a size that exceeds any H. swammerdami. I imagine the largest size they'll be able to reach is that slightly smaller than a Goliath birdeater if the project is that successful. Any larger and I imagine they would suffocate themselves due to the ineffeciency of book lungs at a larger size and weight than they were intended to be used for.

Also, I'm thinking about simply making blends of fruits and vegetables for the crickets with a blender. This way the crickets will eat, attracted by the moisture, and get a balanced meal at the same time though it may expire faster than regular cricket food.

 

[OntarioNative]

Hey Trev,

Ive built a stand with some success for my enclosures. I can email you the plans once Ive made them more understandable. Its a shelf with as many levels as you care to put up. I have some tools at my disposal(handsaw and screwgun) so it made it cheep and fast. Basically cost me 30 bucks in wood. Its got walls on 3 sides with only the front open, so it can conserve more heat and make a more stable micro climate. I plan to up heat tape on the backs of the shelves later on, but for now I have separate heating pads, which is a little irritating to deal with. Its not pretty but it works, id send you a pic but my camera is pooched and i gotta save the funds to buy another:wall:

Id suggest building your own tanks out of acrylic. It would probably be best to build a shelf that can hold 12" square enclosures, then build them using acrylic. The shelf could hold like 4 each and with 5 levels it can hold 20+ emps! Or you could make one large one for each shelf and use dividers to separate them. This would be good because you can choose how many emps go in each enclosure and your not limited by the 12x12 floor space. Im goona go on my own acrylic adventure this weekend, so ill let you know how it is. Goona build some lids and maybe a 12x12x10 enclosure for my emp. If I dont mess the lids up

Alex

 

[Travis K]

Supplying additional amounts of Oxygen does not sound practical and does not address the issue of genetics. The only way to get "giants" would be to breed for them or get lucky enough to find an incident of gigantism and try to breed that trait/mutation into successive generations. I Think it could be done personally but it may take longer than many people are willing to wait/work on it. 2-3 years for maturity multiplied by X amount of generations it takes to breed in larger sizes could equal 30 or even 75 years, we don't know. And that is with controlled breeding.

either way, i think "designer" sorps would be cool.

 

[BrianWI]

I took a "fish" class a little over 20 years ago, what's it called ...ichthyology, had to look up the spelling haha, it's been a while. I remember the professor say that the size of a tank doesn't determine the size of the fish, but it's because people tend to under-feed a fish that has a capacity to get large that we see in a little tank. It might be that way with reps too. That was a long time ago, I don't know what studies have been done since then.

This is not correct. The "fish grow to the size of the tank" is a misplaced observation. They do not grow to the size of the tank, but rather to the quality of the water. Small tanks often lead to poorer water quality and lower size in fish.

As far as oxygen increasing growth... forget it, not biologically sound. Insects, etc are limited by their breathing apparatus, but the result of lower oxygen long term has meant genetic changes in these animals. Short term boost (like less than 1,000,000 years) will be about worthless.

Also, getting the two largest scorps and breeding them will not yield good results. Instead, you would want to start by finding a population of large scorps and breed them in all possible combinations. You are looking for the offspring that result in the largest young from those breedings. Again, breed those in every p[ossible combination. And so on down the line. As size is often a multigenic trait, this is how you will shag out the best combinations. It willl take longer initially, but you'll get bigger animals in the long run without any bottleneck after short term gains.

 

[Nanotrev]

The plants would be placed in the enclosure to provide a higher humidity, along with providing ground cover for the scorpion to move under. I wasn't putting them in the cage with the sole purpose of providing more oxygen to the scorpion, but I see the point you're trying to make to those who suggested an O2 container. They had good ideas since half of what limits their size today are the oxygen levels in our atomosphere, the other half being what you mentioned. Genetics. Now, in regards to how much time it will take...

I could cut that time down by breeding them in mass amounts to get the greatest variation and have a greater chance of producing larger scorpions in a shorter amount of time as Brandon mentioned. His post was highly informative and I enjoyed reading it. I also look forwards to reading any other interesting bits he has to post.

I too thought it would take up to thirty years to see the results turn out, but if I start with large scorpions in the first place provided to me by a vendor who will selectively go through his stock and do his best to get me larger individuals then I could decrease the time spent on the project by quite a bit. I aim to have at least sixty breeding pairs of scorpions to work with. The time I spend in regards to cleaning cages and picking out the best offspring etc. will be high but I'm certain I can pull this off in a somewhat reasonable amount of time with enough effort so that I'm not breeding scorpions when I'm seventy while having very little progress made towards the goal I wish to achieve.

@ Brian
Thank you! I've never considered water quality as a factor in small tanks for the reasons for fish, though I should have thought of the deformities oscar chiclids(sp?) can get when they're kept in tanks that are too small, but they keep growing. Also, I don't mean to sound offensive but much discussion has gone into breeding many, many scorpions. As mentioned above in this post I'd like to aquire at least sixty breeding pairs of large emperor scorpions, if not more both for genetic variety and the possiblity of achieving noticable results sooner as Brandon mentioned. I value everyone's input to this thread, for every ounce of feedback I get towards my project will get me just that much closer to what I want to achieve.

 

[BrianWI]

Brandon is correct for the most part, but is a bit off in a few small ways. A few clarifications...

Each generation is not causing inbreeding depression or loss of genetic material. Early on, making as many pairings as possible is keeping all the same genes, but is allowing you to see all the possible combinations. For the first couple generations you avoid related pairings and have ZERO inbreeding. And, at this point, you will see the most diversity, but progress toward the trait you want will be a very small percentage of animals.

The next step is a bit hairy, so I'll skip it for now, but in short, its where you test to see if the large size is genetically consistent. This guides your future pairings.

The step sfter that is all about inbreeding. Its not only NOT bad, its necessary. Think of it not as losing genes from the pool, but actually forcing out ones you cannot keep. This is actually where you will see the biggest increase in size of your scorps consistently.

Once you hit this point, you have a few paths you can choose, but again, to big a discussion for this post.


I just also want to state, this path would be chosen due to you having a multigenic trait that is unknown in its make up. Were we talking about making a consistent population from a known trait or a "sport", we'd have a different plan to follow (it would be more akin to the middle step I did not describe as a starting point).

People always seem to lean one way. Some say diversity is key, while others believe linebreeding (inbreeding) is a must. They tend to view the opposite stance to theirs as evil. Neither outcrossing nor inbreeding is ever "bad", both are great tools. You just need to know when to apply each.

 

[Nanotrev]

People always seem to lean one way. Some say diversity is key, while others believe linebreeding (inbreeding) is a must. They tend to view the opposite stance to theirs as evil. Neither outcrossing nor inbreeding is ever "bad", both are great tools. You just need to know when to apply each.

I agree, and I don't think Brandon was opposed to that. I believe he was providing insight to how to provide the most noticeable results in the shortest amount of time even though he didn't specifically mention inbreeding. I believe this whole process of actually getting what I want to take a decade, maybe longer despite starting out with all those breeding pairs. It may be sooner. I'll just have to see what the results are and in what direction they lead me.

I'd start out with many specimens and gradually narrow things down to size. We don't have punnet squares for scorpions since we don't know which genes are recessive and which are dominant so I would assume a good variety and optimal conditions would help me decide if a large size was caused by a large or small combination of recessive or dominant genes.

Also, some inbreeding is good if the right times are chosen for it. Reptile breeders do it on and off to strengthen genetics in their color morphs in an effort to both continue the line or even make the color variation more unique, or have higher contrast etc depending on what they're after.

A decrease in numbers shouldn't be a problem since each scorpion produces far more than just one offspring with at least three surviving in each brood. There should be plenty of diversity no matter how much I inbreed after that. After a while I would have my own population of large scorpions after X amount of time to use as breeding stock.

 

[Hoosier7]

Nanotrev,
Sixty breeding pairs- wow! You really don't need that many. Honestly, the best way to insure genetic diversity will be to get scorps that originated from different collection areas (animals in the same area tend to be more closely related). This could be hard to do, but some discussion with importers could give you some leads. Starting with more diverse breeders will allow you to get away with less breeders. Having said that, there's always an advantage to more. In the mouse experiment I was talking about, the breeding program started with only about 20 breeding pairs. The mice are now in their 35th generation of selection, with no ill effects and a big response to selection. The trait you are breeding for, size, will have physical limitations (as Brian mentioned) beyond genetics. So there is a finite maximum size allowed by physics (note that terrestrial arthropods don't usually get very large, and this is why.) It is unfortunately possible that wild emps are already at the maximum size allowed by physics, but it is a testable hypothesis.

@Brian: "...but you'll get bigger animals in the long run without any bottleneck after short term gains. "

There will be a genetic bottleneck, by definition, because you have to limit the number of breeders you start with for practical reasons. The severity of this bottleneck is directly proportional to the number of breeders you start with.

Nanotrev- honestly, I think 20 pairs would be more than enough, and you could probably get away with even less. The more varied the sources of the breeders, the lower number you can start with. BTW, I think increasing the oxygen is a bad idea from a genetics perspective. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you selectively breed 10 generations in an enriched oxygen environment. Now you've got big scorps that have been selectively bred in a high oxygen environment, which means that they likely will not do well when exposed to normal O2 levels. Which makes them useless as a 'designer scorp'. Remember, every manipulation you do while you are selectively breeding becomes a selection criteria (you are inadvertently selecting for animals that thrive in the particular environment you provide.)

-Brandon

 

[Nanotrev]

Nanotrev,
Sixty breeding pairs- wow! You really don't need that many. Honestly, the best way to insure genetic diversity will be to get scorps that originated from different collection areas (animals in the same area tend to be more closely related). This could be hard to do, but some discussion with importers could give you some leads. Starting with more diverse breeders will allow you to get away with less breeders. Having said that, there's always an advantage to more. In the mouse experiment I was talking about, the breeding program started with only about 20 breeding pairs. The mice are now in their 35th generation of selection, with no ill effects and a big response to selection. The trait you are breeding for, size, will have physical limitations (as Brian mentioned) beyond genetics. So there is a finite maximum size allowed by physics (note that terrestrial arthropods don't usually get very large, and this is why.) It is unfortunately possible that wild emps are already at the maximum size allowed by physics, but it is a testable hypothesis.

@Brian: "...but you'll get bigger animals in the long run without any bottleneck after short term gains. "

There will be a genetic bottleneck, by definition, because you have to limit the number of breeders you start with for practical reasons. The severity of this bottleneck is directly proportional to the number of breeders you start with.

Nanotrev- honestly, I think 20 pairs would be more than enough, and you could probably get away with even less. The more varied the sources of the breeders, the lower number you can start with. BTW, I think increasing the oxygen is a bad idea from a genetics perspective. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you selectively breed 10 generations in an enriched oxygen environment. Now you've got big scorps that have been selectively bred in a high oxygen environment, which means that they likely will not do well when exposed to normal O2 levels. Which makes them useless as a 'designer scorp'. Remember, every manipulation you do while you are selectively breeding becomes a selection criteria (you are inadvertently selecting for animals that thrive in the particular environment you provide.)

-Brandon

I understand what you're saying about the oxygen but I don't think it will be a problem nor do I want to increase the oxygen as part of the experiment to a level where it would be significant to the data. I like the presence of plants because they provide a higher relative humidity.

I think you're right, about the possibility of Emperor scorpions already being at their maximum potential size in the wild. It's indeed possible, but I believe that possibility to be slim at best because I look around at much larger centipedes and tarantula. It's said H. swammerdami gets larger than P. imperator so I think they have a little ways to go yet in terms of reaching the peak of their obtainable size.

Alsooo...
@ Brandon
Emperor scorpions generally take 2-3 years to mature if I remember correctly. I remembered I forgot to answer your question that you had earlier.

 

[BrianWI]

Actually, you would never need to hit a bottleneck, that is part of what they genetics sorting does for you. But again, way too complex a discussion for this board.

 

[Nanotrev]

Too complex? You never know until you give it a shot!

If you have anything that contributes to this I'd like to know. I'm just gathering as much information as I can right now from as many sources that appear to be valid and testing those against others I know that are credible, along with the fact that I'm trying to seek out professionals who do genetics, or study scorpions for a living. I know there's an individual on Youtube who studies scorpions or so he says, for a career. I believe him because he took the time and money to search out two literal tomes of knowledge about scorpions. The two or three books he has on them look to be almost two inches thick each and I wish I could get my hands on some books like those because who knows what kinds of things they have stored inside I could use for this.

I'll use anything I can that will help me in this venture I'm taking into breeding scorpions for their size. I hope to do it as quickly and accurately as possible. By initiating a complex discussion here you may attract even more people here, some that may have a number of other things to contribute via knowledge or personal experience.

 

[BrianWI]

Its not very important at this time, either. Your best course would be to get your project started by locating as diverse a group of the forest scorps as you can house and care for w/o any compromise in their quality of life (nothing will kill a successful breeding program like poor conditions due to taking too many animals in).

 

[Galapoheros]

I understand what you're saying about the oxygen but I don't think it will be a problem nor do I want to increase the oxygen as part of the experiment to a level where it would be significant to the data. I like the presence of plants because they provide a higher relative humidity.

I think you're right, about the possibility of Emperor scorpions already being at their maximum potential size in the wild. It's indeed possible, but I believe that possibility to be slim at best because I look around at much larger centipedes and tarantula. It's said H. swammerdami gets larger than P. imperator so I think they have a little ways to go yet in terms of reaching the peak of their obtainable size.

Even at the max size in the wild, there are reports of 8+ inchers out there and I've seen a 7 inch one. The diff in bulk between a 5 inch and 7 inch emp is HUGE! So if you're going for big, even 6 inchers are nice looking, if you're impressed by larger ones. I've only found one big 6 inch female and two 6 inch males. Both the males are gone now and hoping for one more brood from the female. I'm keeping it simple that way because if you had four or more females that had babies, you'd be raising >100 emps to size for at least 2 years. I guess if I were more serious with it like you might be, I might start out with 3 of the biggest females I could find and one or two big males. Even with three females you could end up raising over 100 babies. More than that might be too crazy unless you're set up for it ...a good excuse to raise your own feeders if you aren't already.

 

[BrianWI]

A group effort is often a good way to raise more that you can alone.

 

[Galapoheros]

That sounds like a good idea, a group effort, cherry picking and trading bigger ones in the mail to breed

 

[BrianWI]

I've worked with other groups a couple times to restore populations of rare poultry. Not only does it help with selection, but can also be a great back up in case of one location getting hit with a disease, etc., and being wiped out. Just make sure you are dedicated before you join one or you will let the others down

 

[Nanotrev]

A little more of the plan...

It will take a lot of work. A lot of dedication, I know. While I haven't been posting I've been talking to zoo keepers, other hobbyists, and my mother's friend will soon be added to this list as I see her advice would be quite useful since she works in the field of genetics.

The advice given from the individual who works at the zoo would be that I'll be able to tell which are the largest in the group of young scorpions a while before they reach maturity so I can begin organizing my numbers early on and making arrangements. He also mentioned that while breeding them in large numbers I may come across other traits such as color morphs, though rare in the arachnid hobby. It's quite possible since controlled inbreeding will occur at certain points throughout the project.

In order to house all of the offspring from all of the scorpions let alone the adults themselves I'll need a method that is both economical but keeps the conditions the animals are kept at the absolute best they can be. I already have a very satisfying plan in the works that's on paper now, but in the next few years will come off of the paper and be put to the test once the project reaches a scale that large.

I will breed my own crickets. They will be bred to my standards. I want to odor to be minimal which means I wish to have almost no dead crickets. If I can do so I'll make sure that there aren't any casualties at all but I know it's next to impossible. I'll design their own cage in a way that I can brush them into a different compartment while I clean the main compartment that houses them most of the time. If I have time I'll be sure to clean the cricket enclosure every other day. Their food will consist of blended fruits and vegetables and even more research will be put into what wild insects eat which would benefit the scorpions so that I might be able to replicate it. The food will also be offered in the most sanitary method I can devise so that there's minimal filth that's spread through the cage.

My goal is large, and I've set the bar very high in what I expect from myself for the large amount of work this will require. I'll continue to update this thread with each step I take.

 

[Galapoheros]

I'm wondering if you live with a parent or anybody else. Crickets can drive people crazy once they get going, they make too much noise:evil:, for me anyway. I was able to raise them in a diff room. I like them as feeders, but I stopped. I raise dubia and hisser roaches for feeders. It would be a commitment sticking with the project, esp. if you'd be working with other people. But it's not a lot of work raising the babies, it's very easy and doesn't require a lot of time. I'm raising 42 babies right now, half over a year old and hoping for one more brood from this female, easy, fun, ..unless you lose interest I suppose. Imo, what you'd want to try and do to start out with is cherry pick big ones from a shipment that had mostly big ones come in. The best assumption would be that they were caught from populations made up of bigger scorps in general if you see more in the shipment. The big ones, it's obvious when you see them and to me it's possible they came from the savanna like the other smaller ones but if it's 6 or bigger, I'm going to halfway assume it came from the rain forest and hope for the best, all you can do with limited source info. When they are 6 or bigger, you're not likely to casually say, "well, that one's kind of big..". You'd prob say, "Wow, that one's huge!" I know it's dangerous over there in places in Africa where the big ones can be found but the natives are the ones that hunt them and bring them to the place to be exported. I talked to an importer that went over there and saw how they collected them. The natives bring them in by the thousands from anywhere they can find them, the natives get 25 cents for each one(good money over there). I'd also think about making it a rule that you start yourself out with some that are no shorter than 6 inches, just recos of course, you're going to do what you want lol. It's not often that they get shipments of big ones in around here in my town, I've seen it only three times in about 4 years, but when they do get them in, there are usually several in the shipment. Maybe you could email several people selling inverts that have an online stores and ask them to contact you when they get big ones in.

 

[jpcrazylegs]

I have a huge scorp, its name is the black death and it is easily 10 inches long.


I feed it pinkies and fuzzys because the amount of crickets i have to feed it is insane, and they chrip all day and night long which annoys me.

What do you guys think of her?

 

[Galapoheros]

Cool, looks pretty big. I don't think anybody is going to believe it is 10 inches or even 6 inches though until you put it next to a ruler. The standard method of measuring is from it's mouth parts to end of the tail. The easiest way I measure is to put them on a smooth surface and gently hold the end of the tail while they slide on the surface trying to walk.