scorpions and total darkness

muse

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can scorpions see in total darkness? the reason that I ask is that when I go to bed at night, the area where the scorps will be is totally dark. no moonlight through the windows, nothin'. since they're nocturnal, will they be able to see and hunt in total darkness, or do I need to give them some mood lighting?
 

tabor

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No need to provide artificial moonlight.
 

muse

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what about some extra light during the day, aside from ambient (low) room light? light doesn't really matter at all right, just heat?

I'm trying to figure out what kind of light/heat elements I should use for a hadrurus. I'd like to have a hood with 2 different fixtures...maybe an incandescent on one side for some light/heat, and a black light on the other side only for once in a while. will that work?
 

Aztek

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Use a red infrared light.
I believe scorpions can detect light but see everything all blurry, just enough to know if it's night time or not. They use all the little hairs on their body to "see" by feeling.
 

Mark Newton

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And if you wish to breed Hadrurus you'll need mesic conditions as they are subterranean scorpions.
 

Aztek

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Well it's for heat, they can't see red, you can use it anytime to keep the temperature up.
 

Rosenkreuz

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use a red infrared light for daytime or nighttime?
You can actually leave it on 24/7 if you want, just keep an eye on the temps in the setup to make sure they stay in range. The red light won't disturb the scorpion, since they can't see the infrared wavelengths.

And for the record, no, you don't need any additional lighting other than the room lighting. Scorpions perfer the dark, so the less light the better. Mine does just fine with me switching the light on when I wake up, and shutting it off at bedtime. I use an infrared bulb that's on all the time.
 

MEXICOYA415

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I keep all mine in a closet only turning on the light when I need to do maintenance, feeding or observing. All of them are healthy and happy catching prey with ease.
 

tabor

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I keep all mine in a closet only turning on the light when I need to do maintenance, feeding or observing. All of them are healthy and happy catching prey with ease.
Interestingly enough scorpions "internal clock" is highly accurate. They can spend months in the dark and still know if it night or day. Circadian mechanism or something like that. I'll have to re-read that chapter of scorpion biology.
 

~Abyss~

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I agree I had a few emps housed in total darkness that would still only come out at night. I'm sure alot of my other species wuldn't give me the same results seeing as a lot of them are out during the day as well.
 

skinheaddave

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Interestingly enough scorpions "internal clock" is highly accurate. They can spend months in the dark and still know if it night or day. Circadian mechanism or something like that. I'll have to re-read that chapter of scorpion biology.
You definitely need to re-read that chapter. I would also suggest a couple chapters in Scorpion Biology and Research. Like all animals, the scorpion clock free-runs in the absence of Zeitgebers (cues that synch the clock). So put in complete darkness, constant temperature etc., the scorpion loses its sense of time. Even burrowing scorpions catch the last bit of daylight and use that to synch their clocks. Also, they seem to be capable of using strictly temperature signals to keep them on track (there are elements of this in the literature, though I briefly presented findings of my own study at Arachnocon '06).

Cheers,
Dave
 

Mark Newton

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I was going to say...how does a scorpion maintain a circadian rhythm in total darkness. But..it may still survive okay in captivity without it, that's a different argument.
 

EAD063

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Also, (do not quote me on this, because it's more reasoning than fact) You can't put a heating element inside of a hood. I doubt they even sell heat emmiting bulbs that would properly fit inside of a hood anyways. If you do, your asking to wake up to a big mess of melted plastic and or an electrical fire. Also, a hood purchased directly from a store has a cover used to hold the lighting setup, which includes a shield to stop water droplets from making direct contact with the bulb, any heating element in there is just asking for a fire. Last, if you have a heat bulb and it's directly next a flourecent bulb, it will most likely cause the flourcent bulb (which isn't meant to be hot) to explode.

Obviously there's except to 99% of all rules, but commonly speaking, this isn't a good idea.
 

~Abyss~

Arachnoking
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You definitely need to re-read that chapter. I would also suggest a couple chapters in Scorpion Biology and Research. Like all animals, the scorpion clock free-runs in the absence of Zeitgebers (cues that synch the clock). So put in complete darkness, constant temperature etc., the scorpion loses its sense of time. Even burrowing scorpions catch the last bit of daylight and use that to synch their clocks. Also, they seem to be capable of using strictly temperature signals to keep them on track (there are elements of this in the literature, though I briefly presented findings of my own study at Arachnocon '06).

Cheers,
Dave
I'm guessing that my emps would use temp as an indicator of nightime because for a good month they were in complete darkness back then when my closet had a door.
 

skinheaddave

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I'm guessing that my emps would use temp as an indicator of nightime because for a good month they were in complete darkness back then when my closet had a door.
Yes, it is possible. It is also possible that they simply free-ran and then re-synched when light cues were again available. Desert species have been shown to have a locomotor activity closely associated with their circadian clock, but forest species, which are known to wander around on a much less stringent schedule, may not make such good subjects for an aktograph-based study. The Fleisners have had good results using ERG measurements to determine the day/night state of the eyes which has been shown to be regulated by the circadian clock. So if you wanted to build yourself a differential amplifier, you could find out for sure. :)

Cheers,
Dave
 
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