- Joined
- Dec 18, 2018
- Messages
- 195
So back in February I ran into some brood trouble with my Hottentotta hottentotta. I posted about it here: https://arachnoboards.com/threads/scorpion-breeding-troubles.366745/
The gist of it was most of the brood didn't make it onto her back, and the ones that did quickly fell off over the next day or so. To attempt to save them, I used the "cloth over substrate" method that is commonly used to incubate tarantula egg sacs. Both this method and the next method I used were introduced to me in "Scorpions" by Jeroen Kooijman. Link to Book Here
You can see in the second picture not all of them escaped the envelope either, I didn't know if I could remove it safely. The incubator consisted of a 32oz vented deli cup, such as the kind that would be used to culture fruit flies. It was filled partially with moist substrate, and the cloth was slightly wetted. The initial brood was on Feb 8th, but by Feb 16th they had all died. As an aside, this same Hottentotta had her second brood on July 8th, and by July 12th I have 21 off and separated successfully.
On June 25th my second Paravaejovis spinigerus started giving birth. The first spingerus, which was kept in almost the exact same way, had 60 babies that were separated off without any issues. She was also immediately having trouble, because while the first spinigerus had a very large brood, the second spinigerus had maybe 5-7 babies total, most of whom ended up on the ground. She ended with only 3 babies on her back, and was unusual in that I could still see embryos in her. I left her, assuming she would continue to give birth later, but she never did (and still to this day hasn't, I don't think I can see embryos still so I assume she absorbed them or expelled and ate them without me noticing). The 3 babies gradually declined and fell off, until I found the last one still alive in the substrate. For this one, I tried the second method, scorpion surrogacy. She was moved onto a surrogate on July 4th, making 9 days on the mother's back.
For this method I used a plastic scorpion, keep the substrate very moist and lightly misted the deli cup.
On July 5th, she successfully molted to 2i and is doing well and eating as of today.
My Centruroides vittatus brood ran into similar problems, she gave birth and had babies on her back, but upon molting to 2i, they had all fallen off and died. Then, just a few days later, I found her with 4 more babies on her back. This is was made me believe the spinigerus might finish giving birth after her initial brood was removed. The secondary brood declined much more quickly though, two of the babies disappeared (presumably eaten) right away, and about 5 days later I found the remaining two on the cork bark. I moved them to the surrogate, set up in a similar way.
They were moved to the surrogate on July 6th, and on July 10th they had both molted to 2i. One of them however was extremely weak after the molt and died shortly after.
Some notes, further questions, and explorations:
The Hottentotta brood probably wouldn't have been successful on the surrogate anyway because they had fallen off almost immediately. I would assume more time with mom gives the pullus more chance of survival. Of the two methods, the surrogate definitely seems more successful, the cloth had trouble maintaining the correct moisture level and the pullus were constantly moving and climbing over each other, which no doubt contributed to their deaths. I don't know how long a pullus has to be with it's mother to have a reasonable chance of survival on the surrogate, nor how long they can survive on the surrogate for species that have a longer period between being born and molting to 2i. I would be interested to see this tried in a Heterometrus or Pandinus species. Obviously this is still a last ditch effort, and I'm not sure what the survival rate would be with a larger group as opposed to just the 3 I tried it with. It's also interesting to note that all three did molt successfully, though only 2 survived beyond that. The other thing I would like to note is that while on the cloth the Hottentotta were very active, both the spinigerus and vittatus hardly moved at all while on the surrogate, and even seemed for the most part to orient themselves as they would on their mom. It seems it's a close enough replacement that they think they're on their mothers, and so don't attempt to move around to seek her out. I also don't know if being on the surrogate affects their long term health, I plan on monitoring them over time to see if they make it through molts successfully, or have something that affects their health and causes them to not thrive and grow. Again these are just initial observations, if anyone else is in a situation where they have to try this I'm curious what the outcome is.
The gist of it was most of the brood didn't make it onto her back, and the ones that did quickly fell off over the next day or so. To attempt to save them, I used the "cloth over substrate" method that is commonly used to incubate tarantula egg sacs. Both this method and the next method I used were introduced to me in "Scorpions" by Jeroen Kooijman. Link to Book Here
You can see in the second picture not all of them escaped the envelope either, I didn't know if I could remove it safely. The incubator consisted of a 32oz vented deli cup, such as the kind that would be used to culture fruit flies. It was filled partially with moist substrate, and the cloth was slightly wetted. The initial brood was on Feb 8th, but by Feb 16th they had all died. As an aside, this same Hottentotta had her second brood on July 8th, and by July 12th I have 21 off and separated successfully.
On June 25th my second Paravaejovis spinigerus started giving birth. The first spingerus, which was kept in almost the exact same way, had 60 babies that were separated off without any issues. She was also immediately having trouble, because while the first spinigerus had a very large brood, the second spinigerus had maybe 5-7 babies total, most of whom ended up on the ground. She ended with only 3 babies on her back, and was unusual in that I could still see embryos in her. I left her, assuming she would continue to give birth later, but she never did (and still to this day hasn't, I don't think I can see embryos still so I assume she absorbed them or expelled and ate them without me noticing). The 3 babies gradually declined and fell off, until I found the last one still alive in the substrate. For this one, I tried the second method, scorpion surrogacy. She was moved onto a surrogate on July 4th, making 9 days on the mother's back.
For this method I used a plastic scorpion, keep the substrate very moist and lightly misted the deli cup.
On July 5th, she successfully molted to 2i and is doing well and eating as of today.
My Centruroides vittatus brood ran into similar problems, she gave birth and had babies on her back, but upon molting to 2i, they had all fallen off and died. Then, just a few days later, I found her with 4 more babies on her back. This is was made me believe the spinigerus might finish giving birth after her initial brood was removed. The secondary brood declined much more quickly though, two of the babies disappeared (presumably eaten) right away, and about 5 days later I found the remaining two on the cork bark. I moved them to the surrogate, set up in a similar way.
They were moved to the surrogate on July 6th, and on July 10th they had both molted to 2i. One of them however was extremely weak after the molt and died shortly after.
Some notes, further questions, and explorations:
The Hottentotta brood probably wouldn't have been successful on the surrogate anyway because they had fallen off almost immediately. I would assume more time with mom gives the pullus more chance of survival. Of the two methods, the surrogate definitely seems more successful, the cloth had trouble maintaining the correct moisture level and the pullus were constantly moving and climbing over each other, which no doubt contributed to their deaths. I don't know how long a pullus has to be with it's mother to have a reasonable chance of survival on the surrogate, nor how long they can survive on the surrogate for species that have a longer period between being born and molting to 2i. I would be interested to see this tried in a Heterometrus or Pandinus species. Obviously this is still a last ditch effort, and I'm not sure what the survival rate would be with a larger group as opposed to just the 3 I tried it with. It's also interesting to note that all three did molt successfully, though only 2 survived beyond that. The other thing I would like to note is that while on the cloth the Hottentotta were very active, both the spinigerus and vittatus hardly moved at all while on the surrogate, and even seemed for the most part to orient themselves as they would on their mom. It seems it's a close enough replacement that they think they're on their mothers, and so don't attempt to move around to seek her out. I also don't know if being on the surrogate affects their long term health, I plan on monitoring them over time to see if they make it through molts successfully, or have something that affects their health and causes them to not thrive and grow. Again these are just initial observations, if anyone else is in a situation where they have to try this I'm curious what the outcome is.
