Scolopendra galapagoensis breeding

Andrew101

Arachnopeon
Joined
Dec 7, 2016
Messages
41
S. galapagoensis was paired in the month of July ( forgot to document when it was exactly)
, 1st attempt of pairing was in June 24th 2020 where the male was trying to coax to the female into breeding but being short on time and after 2 hours where the female didn't show signs of interest I separated the 2 and tried again on the following day.

Following day the female showed more interest in breeding and after 6 hours of monitoring the pairing, the male then made the spermatophore but female didn't take it on the spot. She however did show interest in it so I separated the male after that and left the spermatophore with the female in case she does take it. Following day the sperm web was gone so it was either accepted or she rejected it and ate the spermatophore so, I decided to give it another attempt in a week or two being I was moving in July and running short of time being in the clutch season and the male was on loan to me to someone local so had to get the female to take the spermatophore.

3rd pairing seems to be successful, decided to leave the pair together in the breeding tub for 2 and a half days hoping maybe she either took it before or at least have the female pair another time to confirm she had taken the spermatophore. Unfortunately I couldn't get documentation of the female taking the spermatophore however, the female showed interest in pairing until the end of the 2nd day the male showed no more interest in breeding along the female too so it's possible it was a successful pairing being this species do eat the sperm web if they taken the spermatophore.

The female now was preparing a chamber to clutch and being I had her in a shallow tub, I decided to transfer her on August 17th 2020 into a deeper tub with more substrate to give her more options for her to burrow deeper into the dirt ( roughly 4.5-5 inches of substrate was given) and I didn't want the plings escaping from the tub being the first tub was shallow. received_451696249474056.jpeg
Picture of the female that produced me the clutch.
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Eggs were discovered on the 1st of September but picture here was taken on the 15th of September since I wasn't sure if the female was going to eat the eggs from being disturbed the first time when I was checking for eggs. I took a few pictures throughout the development, didn't take many pictures since with how she was angled under the bark it was pretty difficult to get decent pictures in general since she tends to move further back of the bark or grip onto it making it sometimes hard to check.
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Picture taken on October 2nd 2020
IMG_20201022_083737_093.jpg
Picture taken on October 14th 2020
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Picture taken on October 18th 2020, 2 days before plings eat the mother.
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Picture taken on October 20th 2020, the day the plings eaten the mother.
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Picture was taken on November 28th 2020

Took 40 days from them being in the maggot stage to have their first meal. First 2 weeks being in the maggot stage to molt to 1st instar and another 2 weeks for them to harden up for their first meal.
 

Sarkhan42

Arachnoangel
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
Messages
901
Wonderful documentation, and congrats!! Seeing as the latest picture was from November, how are the offspring fairing now?
 

Andrew101

Arachnopeon
Joined
Dec 7, 2016
Messages
41
IMG_20210213_214809_080.jpg
Wonderful documentation, and congrats!! Seeing as the latest picture was from November, how are the offspring fairing now?
Plings were being fed 2-3 times a week large meals being kept at 78-85 degrees till 3rd instar where I fed twice a week but bigger meals now. Plings are now 4th instar measuring on average at 3 inches body length where as they started out at 1 inch body length.

What's interesting is that some are developing more orange and red as they grow older like this individual while some are standard pling colors.
 

Sarkhan42

Arachnoangel
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
Messages
901
Plings were being fed 2-3 times a week large meals being kept at 78-85 degrees till 3rd instar where I fed twice a week but bigger meals now. Plings are now 4th instar measuring on average at 3 inches body length where as they started out at 1 inch body length.

What's interesting is that some are developing more orange and red as they grow older like this individual while some are standard pling colors.
That's fascinating! I'd love to see how they develop, please do keep us updated.
 

Scoly

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 4, 2013
Messages
488
What's interesting is that some are developing more orange and red as they grow older like this individual while some are standard pling colors.
We had a clutch in the UK the previous year by @Salvador and I think there was variation in the plings, but they all darkened out at perhaps 5" mark.

I take it both parents were dark morph?
 

Taffy

Arachnoknight
Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Messages
235
what substrate are you using? appears to hold shape well :)
 
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