Worrying? New Whip won't eat, + help with subspecies

[DragonKhaleesi]

Hello, I'm new to this forum so apologies if I'm a bit of a clutz. I think I'm in the right place though
(Bit of a long list of questions, but I would be over the moon if some people could take the time to give me a hand!)

I recently purchased two Whipscorpions. They are a lovely breeding pair, male and female. They're currently in separate enclosures, though I plan to breed them once I feel I have their husbandry to an absolute T, and more importantly, get the female feeding reliably. I am looking for some advice on feeding as well as understanding and identifying subspecies - I feel like I'm swimming through nonsense words when I try to research this myself I am a newbie so go easy on me though I am generally well researched and they are otherwise doing fantastically! I'm just running into some pretty standard problems so I figured some more experienced keepers would have a few wise words for me! Thank you in advance!

I've had these 2 in my care for just under 2 months now. Before they left they apparently ate well within the week and so therefore I let them almost completely be to settle for a week with me, checking on the humidity occasionally but generally leaving them well alone. After that, I tried them with crickets (no immediate success) and locusts. Neither chase after them if I am present but that's fine. The male's meal always disappears within a day, or a few.
The female's dinner usually sits in the tank untouched until it dies. I have tried her with small dubia roaches, small brown crickets, little locusts, mealworms and even a small morio worm. Locusts seem to be the favorite of the male. I'll be trying some wax worm moths soon too.
I figured she would be most interested in the crickets/locusts but they keep dying before she bothers.

The dubias and worms are living happily in the tank but I've seen no obvious decrease in their numbers (there's only 2-4 little roaches + 2-3 worms in there with plenty of space so they don't bother her) so I don't think she's eating those, though they're harder to keep track of. It's possible she's had a couple of them and I didn't notice, but she still hasn't been feeding consistently/that well for the amount of time she's been with me, which is what I'm aiming for. I know that's the perfect scenario, and a bit optimistic if she's just a tad fussy, but as long as I can get her taking most meals, I'll be pleased.
She did moult about a week ago (perfectly too!), which is possibly why she wanted nothing to do with food, but I doubt this would stop her eating for a month or two, would it? I've given her a short while to 'recover' form her moult and will now be offering brown crix again.
She otherwise seems fine in herself, doing all she should - but should I be worrying about her yet? I have no clue how long they can go without food. Or is this all perfectly normal? Any advice on making tea time a bit more tempting for this difficult madam would be much appreciated!

 

[Johnny Q]

Welcome to Arachnoboards! Is your whip scorpion an amblipygid or uropygid?

 

[Smokehound714]

if you have whip-spiders, you'll need vertical surfaces for them to climb, as they are all lithophiles that like stone cliffs with crevices to hide in.

they also prefer small prey and dont like risking damage to their long delicate legs

 

[DragonKhaleesi]

Welcome to Arachnoboards! Is your whip scorpion an amblipygid or uropygid?

Hi Johnny, thankyou! She's an amblipygid!

if you have whip-spiders, you'll need vertical surfaces for them to climb, as they are all lithophiles that like stone cliffs with crevices to hide in.

they also prefer small prey and dont like risking damage to their long delicate legs

Hello Smokehound! Yes, they do have lots of vertical space to utilize They both have two climbable walls in their enclosures (currently separate), both 30cm high. The male has about 40-45cm of length to climb across with the two walls. The female has about 65-70cm of wall to climb across with the two, as this will be their breeding space for a short time until she develops eggs.
They have lots of things propped against the walls that leave small gaps to get under so they can navigate the whole tank without actually having to leave cover or touch ground. These are currently smooth surfaced hides though that are tricky to climb ON so they only hide behind them on the enclosure walls - this still means they can navigate fine.
I'm changing these to cork bark however (on its way in the post), in the next few days so they can hide behind them as well as climb OVER and around them without having to touch the floor - this might aid their ability to hunt, maybe?

Their humidity remains between 50-80% as they have humidity 'jars' in there and a little damp moss. I spray once a week as this suffices just fine and gives them lots of time to be left alone. Their ventilation is just drilled holes in the lids with mesh covering them to stop locusts escaping. This keeps in the humidity, but if you guys feel they would benefit from better airflow, I can add a vent on the side too? As a general rule I'm told insects don't need huge airflow, just small amounts of simple ventilation, but please correct me if I am wrong in their case.

They both have little heat mats for a warm patch but they generally don't use these, they're just a back up if they fancy a warm spot. Air temp in the cupboard they're in is about 23-24c anyway, the mat mostly staying at around 26-28c. It drops by a few degrees at night but its pretty constant.

I've tried changing around the size of their prey a few times, generally sticking to smaller sizes. I'll try again though: thank you for the pointer Smokehouse!

Hope that extra info helps - thanks for the replies guys! I really appreciate it

 

[schmiggle]

I wouldn't worry too much about ventilation--amblipygi generally don't seem to care that much, and it's not as if caves have much ventilation. It matters to more to keep the humidity up.

 

[Smokehound714]

I wouldn't worry too much about ventilation--amblipygi generally don't seem to care that much, and it's not as if caves have much ventilation. It matters to more to keep the humidity up.

Only a few actually inhabit caves. Most are riparian lithophiles

 

[DragonKhaleesi]

I wouldn't worry too much about ventilation--amblipygi generally don't seem to care that much, and it's not as if caves have much ventilation. It matters to more to keep the humidity up.

I figured this would be the case, thankyou. I'll keep any eye on it anyway and make sure their humidity remains high - thankyou!

Only a few actually inhabit caves. Most are riparian lithophiles

That's interesting - those are some big words I've never heard before!
Most documentaries I have watched seem to focus primarily on the cave dwellers, I've only seen a few studies and things watching them traverse trees and such in the open so that's really interesting. I was just doing some reading - though I struggle to find much information online on these topics - but whilst lithophile is essentially referring to rock/crevice dwelling invert', is 'riparian' referring to the banks of streams and bodies of water and vegetation that grows in these areas? Correct me if I'm wrong, I've never heard that term before So is that where you would find some, if not most, whipspiders and similar? In rock formations near bodies of water?

Fascinating - thank you both!

 

[schmiggle]

Only a few actually inhabit caves. Most are riparian lithophiles

This makes sense. Am I right about ventilation, though? My ventilation was always quite low, and it never seemed to pose a problem.

 

[Johnny Q]

One thing you can try in regards to feeding is to offer freshly molted crickets that are bright white. They have a soft exoskeleton that makes them irresistible.

 

[DragonKhaleesi]

One thing you can try in regards to feeding is to offer freshly molted crickets that are bright white. They have a soft exoskeleton that makes them irresistible.

Clever idea! I'll bare this in mind for future feeds, thankyou