The taxonomy for the American Scolopendra is a mess, and your individual may be a heros or a hybrid. @Mastigoproctus knows a lot about the matter, hopefully he can help out here.I went down to extreme southern Utah and caught a few Scolopendra polymorpha. One of them doesn't look like the rest though. First of all, it is very slender. Second of all, it does not have the "stubby" terminal legs like polymorpha. Do you think it's a young polymorpha or a viridis? Maybe even could be a mix between the two. Here is a picture of the pede:
Okay thank you. I was just a little curious because I have heard of different species breeding with eachother in the wild. Since this does not look like a true polymorpha I thought maybe it was a hyrbrid between viridis and polymorpha.
I'm doing a lot of work on my personal time to get this all straightened out actually. What's the total BL of the specimen? Color differences?I went down to extreme southern Utah and caught a few Scolopendra polymorpha. One of them doesn't look like the rest though. First of all, it is very slender. Second of all, it does not have the "stubby" terminal legs like polymorpha. Do you think it's a young polymorpha or a viridis? Maybe even could be a mix between the two. Here is a picture of the pede:
I'll go measure and let you know. This one seems to be lighter in color and it has a more noticeable line going down the middle of it's body.
That's not always true from what I've seen unless some of my viridis* aren't actually viridis*.
What are you looking at that makes them different?
Sorry for the late response, I am very busy these days. Well all I say for now is keep an eye out for a future thread I'll post on the matter, after my papers are finished, I'll share all but for now I'd prefer to keep most of my findings to myself.