Scoly
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
- Messages
- 488
If you dig back on this forum you'll see plenty of Scolopendra harwickei, S.mirabilis, Ethmostigmus trigonopodus "Kenyan blue leg" and "blue ring", Scolopendra alternans "Hispaniola red giant" and several other species which were imported into Europe, the USA and several Asian countries in decent quantities at some point, but are near impossible to find these days.
Many of the WC females laid clutches, many others were mated, and many of those clutches survived, but almost none of these have developed into a sustainable supply. That's not through lack of trying. Several really smart people, most of whom are on here, have put a lot of effort over years and decades trying to breed various species. There have been many successes of course, but the fact is that almost no species is supplied exclusively from CB (as is the case with many tarantula species) and overall perhaps 99% of all centipedes in captivity are WC or F1, with only tiny amounts of F2 and beyond.
The problem
A lot of the difficulty comes down to the centipedes themselves (eating clutches, small clutch sizes, low survival rates etc...) which we can't do a massive amount about except to learn and improve. Another difficulty is sourcing males, which seem to be much rarer in most species, from captive populations. Unlike tarantulas, they don't make themselves known upon maturity, nor is there data to date showing that they have shorter lifespans than females, so there is no trigger pushing keepers who don't plan on breeding to make their males available to breeders.
These combined difficulties explain why even those species which gave us F1 from females caught gravid rarely produce an F2 or F3 generation: even if you succeed in producing clutches, and the pedelings you sell survive in the hands of their new owners, you might end up not being able to recoup a male, and the line dies.
This is exactly why we no longer have Scolopendra hardwickei in Europe, despite there being around 150 pedelings produced in 2016, and half a dozen people doing everything they can to resuscitate the breeding programme since. We also recently lost what seems to have been the last two male Ethmostigmus trigonopodus "Kenyan blue leg" in Europe (one died, one was shipped to the US) which leaves that line in dire straits too.
A solution
I figured the best way to tackle this is by getting every last centipede keeper's collection onto a database, which would let breeders locate matches, and send an email to the owner with their contact details. It would then up to the two parties to come to some arrangement.
That database is here: https://centipede.keeper.solutions/
It only takes a couple of minutes to enter your collection, and with every specimen logged we improve our odds of having a wide variety of species available at reasonable prices in the future, which is what this is all about. The search and message features aren't operational yet, all you can do is log your collection, but if you sign up you'll be notified as soon as those features go live.
Making numbers work for us
With low clutch sizes, low numbers of keepers and even lower number of breeders, the odds are compounding to work against us, so its important to do what we can to turn them in our favour. The simplest is by volume, which helps in several ways:
)
Reaching them all
One last thing to mention is "the isolated hobbyist". Many centipedes get sold to keepers who aren't on arachnoboards, or the main Facebook groups, and aren't in contact with other centipede keepers. On occasion these keepers have a really critical specimen, but are totally oblivious to just how hard others might be looking for it.
So please do share that link in whatever forums or groups you are in on Facebook. If you're pally with someone with a blog, YouTube channel, or mailing list, please ask for a mention on there. There's no money involved in any aspect of this, we're doing it because we want to preserve variety available in the hobby - and everything so far suggests that isn't easy won't happen unless we coordinate and play smart.
Many of the WC females laid clutches, many others were mated, and many of those clutches survived, but almost none of these have developed into a sustainable supply. That's not through lack of trying. Several really smart people, most of whom are on here, have put a lot of effort over years and decades trying to breed various species. There have been many successes of course, but the fact is that almost no species is supplied exclusively from CB (as is the case with many tarantula species) and overall perhaps 99% of all centipedes in captivity are WC or F1, with only tiny amounts of F2 and beyond.
The problem
A lot of the difficulty comes down to the centipedes themselves (eating clutches, small clutch sizes, low survival rates etc...) which we can't do a massive amount about except to learn and improve. Another difficulty is sourcing males, which seem to be much rarer in most species, from captive populations. Unlike tarantulas, they don't make themselves known upon maturity, nor is there data to date showing that they have shorter lifespans than females, so there is no trigger pushing keepers who don't plan on breeding to make their males available to breeders.
These combined difficulties explain why even those species which gave us F1 from females caught gravid rarely produce an F2 or F3 generation: even if you succeed in producing clutches, and the pedelings you sell survive in the hands of their new owners, you might end up not being able to recoup a male, and the line dies.
This is exactly why we no longer have Scolopendra hardwickei in Europe, despite there being around 150 pedelings produced in 2016, and half a dozen people doing everything they can to resuscitate the breeding programme since. We also recently lost what seems to have been the last two male Ethmostigmus trigonopodus "Kenyan blue leg" in Europe (one died, one was shipped to the US) which leaves that line in dire straits too.
A solution
I figured the best way to tackle this is by getting every last centipede keeper's collection onto a database, which would let breeders locate matches, and send an email to the owner with their contact details. It would then up to the two parties to come to some arrangement.
That database is here: https://centipede.keeper.solutions/
It only takes a couple of minutes to enter your collection, and with every specimen logged we improve our odds of having a wide variety of species available at reasonable prices in the future, which is what this is all about. The search and message features aren't operational yet, all you can do is log your collection, but if you sign up you'll be notified as soon as those features go live.
Making numbers work for us
With low clutch sizes, low numbers of keepers and even lower number of breeders, the odds are compounding to work against us, so its important to do what we can to turn them in our favour. The simplest is by volume, which helps in several ways:
- The more specimens listed, the more keepers might consider breeding just because there is a male available nearby.
- The more keepers start breeding, the greater the body of experience in the hobby, the better chances we have.
- The more breeding happens (even of common species) the more centipedes those involved in breed will have at their disposal and be able to offer as exchange to stubborn sellers sitting on a potential male of a rare species.
- Being aware of what others keep facilitates exchanges and pooling of specimens of the same species together, and also to prevent harmful change of hands (like shipping a load from one continent to another, thereby splitting the pool into two irreconcilable halves both of which are too small to be sustainable).
- The more excess centipedes of common species we have, the more freebies we can give, the more people we get into the hobby, the more breeders we get over time, and the less likely breeding programmes are to collapse.
)Reaching them all
One last thing to mention is "the isolated hobbyist". Many centipedes get sold to keepers who aren't on arachnoboards, or the main Facebook groups, and aren't in contact with other centipede keepers. On occasion these keepers have a really critical specimen, but are totally oblivious to just how hard others might be looking for it.
- Sometimes a random pet shop ends up with a few animals which bypassed the usual centipede outlets.
- Sometimes a centipede jumps out of a suitcase and ends up in a tarantula keeper's collection.
- Sometimes a private sale happens outside of the usual channels and a newcomer ends up with a super rare species.
So please do share that link in whatever forums or groups you are in on Facebook. If you're pally with someone with a blog, YouTube channel, or mailing list, please ask for a mention on there. There's no money involved in any aspect of this, we're doing it because we want to preserve variety available in the hobby - and everything so far suggests that isn't easy won't happen unless we coordinate and play smart.
