- Joined
- Nov 25, 2007
- Messages
- 622
Hi,
though a lot of people may already know it, I thought I'd share some basic information of external sexual dimorphisms on house centipedes (Scutigeromorpha), coming along with pictures.
I know, those interesting animals rarely enter hobby (especially the giant ones), but maybe those who still keep some can use this information for
mating purposes.
First of all: No gassing needed.
You can easily see the genital region when you flip over the pede and take a look at the distal part.
Both males and females have gonopods (in opposite to Scolopendromorpha), but males have more or less degenerated remains as
you can see on the following pic (loosely coupled gonopods at the genital region):
Female Scutigeromorpha bare two gonopods that appear a little bit "fused" together - they look like fangs of bees or something like that:
The main purpose of gonopods is to control and hold the egg - hence it makes sense females still use gonopods in some Chilopoda-genera.
It still remains a mystery why only Scolopendromorpha-males bare those gonopod-remains and females don't show any morphological signs of gonopods.
Maybe male Scolopendromorpha misuse it to control webbing, but that's only a guess.
If you keep a female house centipede go sure you don't change substrate completely when rehousing. Scutigeromorpha don't curl around a clutch, but burrow each of their eggs into the substrate (They even "tape" their eggs with substrate). So it's always a surprise if you see young house centipedes wandering in
your enclosure.
The provided pics are from specimen of Thereuopoda cf. longicornis:
Some of you may know those - the are pretty common in South-Eastern Asia.
Regards
Turgut
though a lot of people may already know it, I thought I'd share some basic information of external sexual dimorphisms on house centipedes (Scutigeromorpha), coming along with pictures.
I know, those interesting animals rarely enter hobby (especially the giant ones), but maybe those who still keep some can use this information for
mating purposes.
First of all: No gassing needed.
You can easily see the genital region when you flip over the pede and take a look at the distal part.
Both males and females have gonopods (in opposite to Scolopendromorpha), but males have more or less degenerated remains as
you can see on the following pic (loosely coupled gonopods at the genital region):
Female Scutigeromorpha bare two gonopods that appear a little bit "fused" together - they look like fangs of bees or something like that:
The main purpose of gonopods is to control and hold the egg - hence it makes sense females still use gonopods in some Chilopoda-genera.
It still remains a mystery why only Scolopendromorpha-males bare those gonopod-remains and females don't show any morphological signs of gonopods.
Maybe male Scolopendromorpha misuse it to control webbing, but that's only a guess.
If you keep a female house centipede go sure you don't change substrate completely when rehousing. Scutigeromorpha don't curl around a clutch, but burrow each of their eggs into the substrate (They even "tape" their eggs with substrate). So it's always a surprise if you see young house centipedes wandering in
your enclosure.
The provided pics are from specimen of Thereuopoda cf. longicornis:
Some of you may know those - the are pretty common in South-Eastern Asia.
Regards
Turgut
