well just got an e-mail from ken last night that my h.spinifer got shipped last night . so i live in minnesota so do you think they'll get here today, but i'm so exicted i will post pics gahh so exicited
Cool. I would double check the ID on your own though if you find a way to do it, and if you're curious. I always thought H. spinifer had a little longer and thinner chela, and had an all-round shinier look. That one looks more like pics of H. petersii I've seen, but those could have been misIDd, Sooner or later, I'm going to buy "that" book.
won't be completely positive ID till adult so wouldnt worry about ID, and hey, if its something other than a spinifer then you got a good deal if you paid the price of one.
Yeah you got a good deal, just saying it might not be spinifer. I have one like the one you have as far as I can tell. It's an adult and has the same ratio to it's features. Also chela tend to thicken with molts with Heterometrus. So if it's not an adult, the chela should be even thicker with another molt. I also wouldn't completely believe it's not an adult. I wonder what the person that told you that was basing that on. Have you measured it? I could take a pic of mine and measure it if you wanted to compare, ....lol that didn't sound very good.
OK I found some more info for you to look at if you want. Yours has a dull finish, it's not dirt making it look that way imo. It is a characteristic of Heterometrus petersii and H. laoticus, maybe others I don't know, but it's not a feature of H. spinifer. Petersii and laoticus have this dull finish even at 2nd instar, mine did anyway. imo, yours is petersii because it has granulation on the carapace, laoticus has no granulation. Spinifer is more shiny, well you can see for yourself. You can read about it here and look at pics on page 33(petersii) and compare to spinifer on pg 41. I'd much rather have petersii personally, sounds like spinifer is much easier to get from what I've heard.
I wouldn't count on going off dullness (if thats a word) of the scorpion as a reliable ID tool especially with the quality of those pictures. It's for sure not a laoticus, it might be a petersii but it still also has the granulation of a spinifer so it's almost pure speculation at this point with the pictures given.
Heterometrus spp. are notorious for being hard to ID, and I can't make out if it's adult or not by those pictures, but if it does molt once more it will be way easier to tell. And by the way I hate ID'ing hets, its my biggest and only peeve about scorpions.
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