Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

Diablo's scorplings are now wandering about! They have been wandering around in the mouth of her burrow, completely free from mum. This means I took the chance to separate them as soon as I could. This is a photo of a scorpling from a few days ago - it is small, and very pale in colour. I'm not sure if it was even meant to be off her back this early, but it was: I waited a few days, and the scorplings started to change colour. They are now a darker brown - still not black like their mum, but darker than the pale cream one. I have counted them out - I now have an extra 15 scorplings - and put them into a communal tank where they can huddle together under some bark. I have fed them a couple of pre-killed locusts which they seemed to enjoy, and I spritz them every day. So far, so good. I still have 15 scorplings...

And so my decision to get my first mystery box has even more consequences.... Since Diablo arrived, she has reminded me time and time again why mystery boxes may not be the best of ideas. I had thought that now that she was rehoused into a 125 litre aquarium, she might be happy. I was happy thinking that I had done my best to make her happy, given that she was a wild caught animal. I felt guilty at the idea of her being pulled from her natural environment, shipped thousands of miles around the world, and dumped in a plastic tub in my front room. Since being moved into the larger housing, I had barely seen her as she had burrowed deep into the substrate. I took this to be a good thing, as previously she had been pacing her smaller enclosures, tapping on the glass. She certainly didn't seem content then, so now that her behaviour seemed calmer I thought that maybe she was content now. Well, it seems that she had a surprise up her many sleeves.... Just as a reminder, this is ...

It's my birthday! As it is my birthday and I am a Scorpio (not that I put any stock into astrology) I thought that we'd discuss Diablo some more. And as much as I'd like to think that Diablo is wishing me a Happy Birthday, the cold black of his eyes tells me otherwise.... Or, maybe I should say her eyes - yes, I now believe Diablo to be a girl. While I had Diablo out of the vivarium the other day to rehouse, I snapped this photo in the hopes of sexing her: Scorpions have two comblike structures called pectines which you can see in the photo above, or highlighted in this diagram below: Both sexes have these pectines, which they use as an additional sensory organ - each tooth of the comb is covered in chemoreceptors which have developed to detect scent trails, pheromones, or other chemical signals. Both sexes use them to track down prey or to find their way home to their burrow, for example. However, the male also uses his pectines to tract down receptive females for br...

Recently I made the decision to rehouse Diablo, my Asian forest scorpion. As previously discussed, I acquired Diablo through a Spider Shop mystery box - I paid £30 and they sent me an assortment of critters, worth more than the £30 I paid. It was a great experience, but at the time I wasn't at all prepared to care for a scorpion, and it has been a steep learning curve since then. Having since been on the website, I learned that Diablo was a wild caught specimen. This explains why he has been pacing his enclosure, tapping on the glass as if to find a weak spot and escape. I have moved him from one tank to another in a vain attempt to give him enough space to satisfy him, but he doesn't seem to be happy yet. At one end of my front room, I had an old 125 litre Juwel aquarium. I used to keep tropical fish, but a busy work schedule and bad home life balance meant that I unfortunately didn't notice when the filter packed in, and it eventually killed everything in the aquarium...

Every so often I feel the need to check in on Diablo. Mostly, he keeps himself to himself. If he's not hiding out under his log, then he's hiding out in the massive tunnel complex that he's dug for himself under the substrate. He is a nocturnal animal, and now that he's being kept in the living room instead of my bedroom, I literally am getting no signs of activity from one week to the next. I don't even know for sure that he's eating. I put food in, and it appears to disappear, but I never actually see him eat or hear any scuffles. I've seen youtube videos of scorpion feedings where the scorpions can't wait for food - they pounce almost as soon as it's put into the enclosure. Not Diablo. I've seen crickets sit on his head before now and he's not reacted.... Maybe he's too well fed for a decent feed response? I'm not sure. Shortly after these photos were taken I threw two small locusts in and - as expected - he ignored them....

Time to move away from the Spoods and mantids, and give Diablo a little love. Since my last post about Diablo, I have added approximately 8 extra litres of coco fibre substrate into his enclosure. He loves to dig, he really loves to fill his food bowl with dirt, and who am I to stop him from doing what makes him happy? He's settled down enough now that he's not tapping on the glass all night, too. He's often found out in the daytime, just sitting and chilling. Which is nice. It also means that I've been able to get a pretty good look at him, even if I've not been able to get a decent photograph of him. When I took this photo of him, it was very obvious to see that he had two eyes, on the top of his head, in a central position. But I had heard that arachnids have between six to eight eyes. On my tarantulas, you can clearly see eyes - if not individual ones then you can see distinct clusters of eyes. So where are the others? Well, having done a bit of digging...

Since getting Diablo I have become increasingly curious about how scorpions eat. Unfortunately, Diablo has so far refused to eat so I can't satisfy my curiosity that way. I do have some dubia roaches on order though, in case he just doesn't like the locust hoppers that I've offered. While I wait for him to decide that he is hungry, I have been googling for more information. Scorpions confuse me. They don't have fangs, like spiders do. They have clawlike chelicerae instead. It looks like they should be able to physically eat their bugs, but I have been very clearly taught that scorpions can only imbibe liquids. So how do they eat? The internet hasn't been hugely helpful in this matter - there were many articles discussing what scorpions eat, but very few regarding how. And the ones that were tended to be locked behind paywalls. Not helpful. Obviously, I know that scorpions use their stinger to paralyse prey. But then what? In the image above, the chelicer...

Diablo's new tank arrived on Friday. It is the Exo Terra large faunarium. I don't actually feel that it is big enough, but it is the largest that I can fit into my room, currently, so it will have to do. I have read online that most people keep their forest scorpions in 10 gallon aquariums, so I have been window shopping and have earmarked a very nice glass tank, with cross ventilation, front opening, and a padlock, here . When I move, he will be rehoused again into that. For now though, Mister Grumpy will have to make do with what I have. I was very anxious about the idea of removing him from his tank for this - while I know that his sting is likened to a bee or a wasp sting, I don't actively expose myself to bees or wasps. I don't want to be stung, at all. Nor do I want my daughter to be stung, so she was removed from the room while I was doing this. I needn't have worried, however. While he was a little wary of me, and clearly did not want to be handled,...

So as of writing, my scorpion - now named Diablo - has been home for one night. Obviously, having scrambled to get an enclosure together for him, his housing situation is less than ideal. His roaming space needs to be about 12 inches by 12 inches, and he really needs a substrate deep enough to dig into. I get this, so the first thing I did once he was settled into his temporary accomodation was to order him an enclosure that was much larger. I've also ordered him a water bowl, better substrate, feeding tongs, and a thermometer/hygrometer to keep a better eye on his environment. I spent about £51 in doing so. (I could have got it for £35 plus postage from TSS, if only their earliest delivery date wasn't in 7 days time!) But really? Did he really have to circle his enclosure *all night*, tapping on the plastic as if trying to find the weak spot? I barely slept as I was hugely anxious that he would escape! And then his tapping intrigued the cat who spent part of the night tr...

Wow. I am a very happy spood keeper. I have got home, and transferred all of my spoods into their new homes. Because of sizing, I did not have enough Braplast tubs to rehouse all of the original spoods, so Shelob remains unhoused. But as she is the smallest of the three, she can wait another molt or so. Heterometrus laoticus We might as well start with the biggest surprise. This was a difficult critter to transfer. I was unprepared for a scorpion - I don't keep scorpions at all, and nothing I own has gotten big enough for me to have spare enclosures hanging around or anything, so I had to use what was available to me and borrow an enclosure from work. It's not really suitable - it doesn't have cross ventilation and it's not wide enough - but I have since ordered a glass terrarium from TSS and he will be rehoused again once it arrived. Fortunately, I had enough cork bark and substrate hanging around that I was able to throw a house together, and I can refine it later on....

I got my replacement female jumping spider today, Phidippus regius . I haven't opened the tube yet to let her out as I am still at work. As such, she doesn't even have a name as yet because I wanted to see her before I named her. Her theoretical name at the moment is Winona - Close enough to Winnie that I still feel that I have my Winnie, but different enough to not be a direct replacement. And obviously, a play on Winona Ryder (Winona Spider). I have also received my Caribena versicolor (also still in it's tube), three braplast tubs to rehouse my original Spood trio (photos to come), and another arboreal sling keeper. All exactly as I expected, no issues here. But.... I also received my first mystery box. I've never ordered a mystery box before, and common sense ought to have deterred me, as a novice. But I was bored, and the devil makes work for idle hands.... So I ordered a £30 mystery box from The Spider Shop. And, well. I don't regret it, that'...