Wild Caught Isopods

[Vanessa]

What are the chances that living with a small amount of wild caught isopods could kill a P. imperator 2nd instar? If they were collected in the city where there might be a chance that they have come in contact with chemicals or pesticides?
No, I did not do this myself, because I never have anything in with my captive bred inverts that came from anywhere but a pet store. I did not kill my little Marcus Aurelius... he is doing great.
I got a 2nd instar scorpion from someone on Friday night and they were dead when I came home from work today. They have isopods in their enclosure and i just learned that they were collected from outside - in Toronto.
There were originally two scorpions, but one died during moulting. The remaining one, that I took, moulted back in July. They looked fine to me, but a bit small and skinny looking compared to Marcus who is older.
If they didn't recover from their moult, would it take this long for them to die?
I'm just trying to cover all the bases. I can't imagine that I did anything to cause their death in three days that wouldn't affect anyone else in here and everyone is doing fine, but I am devastated all the same and would like to try to determine what could have happened.
I want to rule out the isopods and go from there.

 

[Ranitomeya]

There are more dangers than just chemicals from the environment, but it's possible that small amounts of pesticides, their residues, or derivatives may have come with the isopods. It's also possible that pathogens and parasites might have been introduced. Many parasites are found in sublethal numbers in the wild and could become a fatal infestation over time in captivity. Some microbes are only a problem under conditions only present in captivity and others may become lethal to organisms that have not evolved alongside of them and developed a resistance to them.

 

[Vanessa]

I do understand that, but I know that people use isopods in damper enclosures with no problem. I am assuming that most people will purchase them from a captive bred source which eliminates many of the dangers, though.
At this point, I'm just grasping at straws. His death could have been caused by a myriad of things, but the fact that the isopods were wild caught were at the top of my list.

 

[G. Carnell]

Second instar is the most delicate one for Pandinus babies, in my experience, those that can moult to I3 tend to survive until Adulthood

They tend to die just before, or during a moult - if they manage to get out of their old skin they tend to survive (my experience again)

I don't think the Isopods would be the problem, is there evidence to suggest these chemicals would affect scorpions and not isopods?

 

[Vanessa]

I am sure that isopods will die if they are exposed to high enough concentrations of pesticides and whatnot. My concern is that invertebrates from outside have developed a bit of a resistance to low levels of these chemicals that captive bred invertebrates would not have. I was concerned that those levels, low enough not to kill an invertebrate living outside, might be high enough to kill an invertebrate who has never come in contact with them.
Is my reasoning off on this?
I am beginning to think that this little scorpion might have been neglected and I did not have enough experience with them to have been able to catch it immediately. Or, just not enough time because I only had him for three days and I was working two of those. Looking over his little dead body this morning, he looks thin. There were no gaps in his plates like there is on my Marcus (I have been chubbing him up a bit). This little one was much smaller than my Marcus, so nothing jumped out at me. There was an uneaten cricket in the enclosure, but maybe he just wasn't able to catch crickets and should have been fed by hand? This little one was moving around like normal and I didn't witness any behaviour that made me concerned about him.
After the initial shock of finding him dead out of the blue like that, my concern quickly focused on my other scorp and all the spiders. I think that this little guy was neglected in his previous home and it makes me very angry that the person that I got him from didn't rehome him sooner.

 

[pannaking22]

Isopods can take quite a beating when it comes to environmental influences, so it's entirely possible that they had been exposed to a good amount of pesticides beforehand and weren't showing any problems. Might have been a bit slower, which made them good for snacking on, which could have (though not necessarily) lead to the scorps death. Biomagnification is something not really studied in predaceous arthropods unfortunately, though it has been documented in arthropod herbivores and in some vertebrates (peregrine falcon and DDT being the best example).

It's quite likely that that was just going to be the little one that wasn't going to make it regardless. Sometimes random deaths happen unfortunately and it really sucks when they do. I've had similar issues before where the scorpling just won't eat for whatever reason. I keep the humidity up and continue to offer food every few days and see what happens. Sometimes they pull out of it and other times not. You're doing the right thing by asking questions though and keeping a close eye on your other little ones to see if there are any issues.

 

[SDCPs]

I second pannaking's remarks about random deaths. They really suck but nothing I've been able to do anything about even with years of experience. Now of course if there are large numbers of "random" deaths something is wrong, but one here and there is unfortunately standard it seems.

 

[Vanessa]

Thanks everyone for your feedback - I really appreciate it. I felt horrible. I don't have a lot of scorpion experience and I blamed myself immediately that I didn't catch that something was wrong with him right away. Although, what would I have done about it? I probably wouldn't have been able to do much considering how close to death he was if he was dead three days later. There was nothing glaringly obvious wrong with him - he was moving and acting exactly like Marcus Aurelius does.
Then, my sadness quickly turned to fear at maybe bringing something in that would affect everyone else. The little one was far from the tarantulas, but not that far from Marcus Aurelius. I'm hoping that the fact that both scorps were in high walled glass aquariums will prevent any cross contamination that might have potentially occurred.
I feel horrible. Poor little tyke.

 

[BrenPruitt]

I live in Carlsbad New Mexico and want to get into scorpion keeping how do I catch one i have plenty of tank space (a 10 gallon tank and 3 critter creepers) just can't seem to catch one