S. s. dehaani is gonna be a mom!

[Henry Kane]

WHile doing the rounds in teh bug room yesterday we discovered my dehaani tightly coiled around a new brood of eggs. She has set herself up in a nice secure area of her enclosure so maintaining her enclosure should not be a disturbance. *fingers crossed*

This raises some questions though. My first question being...
Can female centipedes store a spermatophore even through a molt? The reason I ask is that while in my care, this particular pede has dome some significant growing.
If not, then my next Q is...
Do centipedes ever lay infertile eggs?

I'll be getting some pics soon.

Atrax

 

[danread]

Hi Atrax,

I'm not 100% sure about this, but i don't think that they can store spermatophores after a moult, as the lining of the chamber is shed along with the rest of the exoskeleton. As for the laying of infertile eggs, this can happen, so unfortunately i think it seems likely that the eggs your pede has laid are infertile. I hope i'm wrong though! Keep us updated.

Cheers,

Dan.

 

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by danread
Hi Atrax,

I'm not 100% sure about this, but i don't think that they can store spermatophores after a moult, as the lining of the chamber is shed along with the rest of the exoskeleton. As for the laying of infertile eggs, this can happen, so unfortunately i think it seems likely that the eggs your pede has laid are infertile. I hope i'm wrong though! Keep us updated.

Cheers,

Dan.

Do we know this for a fact about centipedes? I know it's true for Tarantulas, but has anyone any evidence that this is the same for centipedes/myriopods? True spiders don't lose sperm when they molt, as evidenced by numerous sacs from a single WC black widow, as some have reported...

 

[danread]

Hi Tom,

No, i'm not 100% sure if it's a fact. I was just looking up the structure of centipedes in a textbook i used for my biology degree called invertebrate zoology by Ruppert and Barnes (1991, Saunders collage publishing). It seemed to indicate that the seminal recepticals are part of the exoskeleton, so i assume that they would be shed along with the rest of the exoskeleton during a moult. But it does not specifically say this as a fact, i am just making an assumption, so i could be wrong on this. There definitely needs to be more research done on centipede reproduction, i've heard of very few sucesses in breeding pedes, most fertile eggs seem to come from wild caught specimens.

Cheers,

Dan.

 

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by danread
Hi Tom,

No, i'm not 100% sure if it's a fact. I was just looking up the structure of centipedes in a textbook i used for my biology degree called invertebrate zoology by Ruppert and Barnes (1991, Saunders collage publishing). It seemed to indicate that the seminal recepticals are part of the exoskeleton, so i assume that they would be shed along with the rest of the exoskeleton during a moult. But it does not specifically say this as a fact, i am just making an assumption, so i could be wrong on this. There definitely needs to be more research done on centipede reproduction, i've heard of very few sucesses in breeding pedes, most fertile eggs seem to come from wild caught specimens.

Cheers,

Dan.

Yeah, we still know next to nothing about this kind of thing... I'm sure we're all interested to find out if you get viable eggs from this, Gary!

 

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by Mister Internet
True spiders don't lose sperm when they molt, as evidenced by numerous sacs from a single WC black widow, as some have reported...

True spiders don't moult after maturity, though. Ts are a strange bunch.

 

[Henry Kane]

Yeah, I hope it goes good too. She was w/c. I acquired her from John Hoke close to a year ago.
Unfortunately, I didn't make a molt record for her. I'm struggling to recall her last molt in fact. I most memorably recall a time she burrowed herself in and sealed the entrance to her hide for a couple weeks or so. When she finally emerged, she seemed noticably bigger and more colorful. I'm positive she had molted but the situation at hand is making me question everything. It's tough to remember these things when you keep so many bugs. I guess I just learned the hard way why we should keep records.
It's day 3 since we noticed her coiled up and she hasn't budged.

I will keep you guys updated.

See ya.

Atrax

 

[petitegreeneyes]

Good Luck Atrax,
Hope you have lots of babies