Dude, I know for sure that IF they were on their mom's back of course they have a higher chance to survive. But ze problem nao is not that. They aren't on their mom's back and the mom haven't been even TRYING to pick them up.

They basically wandered too far off away from their mom. I did a few research and yes it is possible to raise 1st instars. I rather try raising them than let nature's will to kill them. Furthermore, if I'm able to do this, I believe it will be a huge addition to the knowledge of all keepers here.

Since they are bound to die in nature's hands, why not let my own pair of hands give them a second chance to live? Not playing god but seriously, why not?

Thanks!!

Yup, I will need lots of luck and guidance too, from you especially!

Btw, the 4chan smile chick gave me a freaking huge laugh for a damn long time lol

Oh well, let's just then hope for the best!! Enough of the sad stories of how the baby died, here's the mommy in her new home in which I took a few days of scavenging to find!!

It's a huge pill bottle hahahaha

lester : Like you said lah, drugs!! D:

No lah, it's actually a bottle which holds Gui Ling Gao. For those who do not understand, it's something like a freaking chinese herbal jelly and that's the bottle that comes together with it. A bottle is about RM16.50 and I was lucky because when I went to muh buddies' place, I found the bottle lying on the table.

One of his housemates threw the bottle there and I was like, I see a bark scorpion mansion there! Initial idea was to use RM5 pushpots which I still think it looks epic I mean judging from the price and as well as the size and all. Best enclosure for small scorpions imho!!

This post has been edited by Kar: Oct 15 2009, 10:02 PM

Drew, what babies are those? C.vittatus?

Yes, happy diwali to all scorpion keepers everywhere in the world!!

Rafiq, god answered 3/4, the other 1/4 is not there!!

My condolences ryo, I'm just curious...did you mist at all?

From what I'm experiencing at the moment, Hots are kinda moisture-friendly, I have a wet moss/spray at one corner everyday in the enclosure. Though, it does dry off the next day and hard work is to be put. The thing that I see is that my Hot tends to chill at the wet corner all the time. Just my input to see if anyone experienced the same here.

It's damn weird man because theoretically there shouldn't be any issues concerning too wet for hots. Have you seen how Alex keeps his Hot? It's even more epic wet lol and the hot lived

Nice input ride. That probably explains the reason why Alex's ultra hot is not dead till now. He misted it like how you'd mist on a freaking AFS lol.

And yes, I can confirm. Rafiq is the epic irresponsible papa that refuses to check on his babies everyday. His daily motto : "muh babies are like mahoneys, I put them out in the street, they live there and they help me make muh moneh"

I seriously think a safe conclusion is that different hots come from different regions or so? But how do we differentiate?

Rafiq, I don't mind free hots, just to let you know!! D:

Gimme 10 and I'll experiment for you FOR FREE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

EDIT : Fallenangel, I'm not really sure how it would affect arid inverts. But imho the main cause of death due to overhumid for arid inverts is mycosis and I'm not exactly sure will drinking too much water allow you to get mycosis.

If that is the case, then even feeding on a prey can cause mycosis which is totally absurd. And mycosis is usually caused by too much moisture, too little ventilation at higher temperatures. Technically speaking, there shouldn't be any mycosis problems if you are keeping an arid invert in a dehumidified room but yet providing enough moisture to molt.

From what I know, a large percentage of inverts suffer from bad molt is due to having low water content in their body. From that, the only possible reason I could come up with for bad molt is basically lack of water to drink or lack of moisture absorb from prey.

It's funny how tarantulas are on the other hand much more flexible when it comes to temperature and humidity and yet scorpions are so much more fragile. Then again, possibly its due to the exoskeleton build of a scorpion in comparison with a tarantula which has the ability to counter fungus growth I presume?

This post has been edited by Kar: Oct 27 2009, 11:46 PM

Exactly my point ryo, that is why I say there is no possibility for arid to semi-arid scorpions to die due to overhumid. What I'm thinking is possibly due to something that is much more complex than that.

All these while, every one of us have been so humid-phobic that we all forgot what mycosis is in the first place, which is fungus growth. I just don't think overhumid would actually kill a scorpion whether or not it comes from an arid or semi-arid environment. Overhumid to the point of fungus growth? Then YES, I believe it will kill your scorpion!

But I do believe in defected broods and such or broods that tend to have more defected specimens than others. This though may be caused due to bad husbandary I presume?

Right, you see I think most of you guys know about my super unexpected C.sculpturatus that popped all of a sudden. What happened was that before she popped, I wasn't exactly the best keeper for it, what I did was just feed her until it's right below the regular meal routine. That's probably due to how I'm a bit phobia when it comes to powerfeeding bark scorpions. They grow too fast and they die too fast.

The C.sculpturatus that I had was a young mother, she's not well fed, basically just enough and she gets her humid side almost at all times. The only problem was that she wasn't a well fed mother and also a young mother.

That's bad husbandry for someone who doesn't know that she's gravid at all and hence I thought it may have caused the reason of why she wiped off the whole brood of nymphs when she gave birth to them. Simply because they are defected or maybe she's hungry herself as well.

But looking at how it was, there were a lot of defected scorplings, some could only move their body but not their legs/pincers some could only move their pincers but nothing else and they were all wrapped together in a big ball and they all managed to survive for 3 days. And as I said, there where only 6 that made it and even so, the mother wiped all 6 off.

And looking back, Ryo's Hottentotta Hottentotta nymphs came from a mother that died shortly after they were born. I'm just curious that possibly the conditions that their mother was being kept isn't exactly tip top. But that could only be clarified by Ryo and definitely not me.

Aha! Now my last question would be the source of the Hottentotta Hottentotta. Did you get it in as an adult or did you raised it up yourself as a baby? Yes of course I remember what you told me in MSN, Ryo and hence I myself have built some curiosity towards it. Imho, hots should be somewhat always ready for a prey and even for my C.sculpturatus, she was never at any point refusing food, it's just that I have been limiting her.

My best guess at the moment is the condition of the mothers and of course even if you are importing babies directly, the condition of the scorpion could be the main cause of death. That pretty much sums up why Rafiq's hots are all kicking hard and yours are kicking the bucket instead of kicking hard.

Off topic for a bit, Ryo, I heard that you got a pair of C.sculpturatus in. Mind filling me in about the details? I wouldn't mind throwing my female there lol

If you were to ask me, these are the few hypothesis that I have narrowed down,

1) The Hottentotta Hottentotta that you bought is possibly an old Hottentotta Hottentotta. I believe like any other animals, scorpions too will be weaker and weaker as they age. In this case, we're still not sure because we can't tell how old exactly is your former Hottentotta Hottentotta. Any information on this will be of great use!

2) It could be a Wild Caught specimen. I'm not sure if you guys have experienced the same issues that I have with Wild Caught scorpions. What I actually have as feedback from my friends and also through observing my very 2 Wild Caught specimen(Liocheles Australasiae), problems do occur when it comes to feeding. Half of the time, force feeding is almost a must! And not only feeding, they also seem to perish easily in captivity due to some reasons that I can't think of now.

3) There is one more possibility and that is due to the scorpion itself has already weakened itself before reaching to you. This is the only hypothesis that I still have great doubts due to my lack of knowledge in regards of how a scorpion can be weakened/killed. Especially for your Hottentotta Hottentotta case, there is a bundle of thoughts to be put in because you yourself is a credible keeper with experience. I believe with any "google-diseases", you should have been able to identify before hand.

I really do believe in mothers that are kept with minimal husbandry will lead to defected babies and even for some mothers which are kept with good husbandry, defected babies will definitely come by possibly either due to stress during labour, stress during gestation, imperfect gestation, or it can even be due to bad genetics. From my tarantula keeping experience, I have seen eggsacs that contain almost 50-80% of spiderlings that are born with Dyskinetic Syndrome or some even smaller than their siblings. Some are born not eating at all in which caused them to not go through 2nd instar or in some cases, 3rd instar.

EDIT : Ahh...it's not the same ones that we have. Hmm...I noticed your signature...and I see Tityus Stigmurus! May I know if there is any possibility if I were to get some as well? Uber interested!!

This post has been edited by Kar: Oct 28 2009, 04:48 PM

It could be bad genes, or it could also be due to stress during gestation, bad gestation, or even stress during labour. To identify it is almost as close as searching for a needle in a haystack, impossible!

A little bit of misunderstanding there, I didn't said anything about Liocheles Australasiae die easily and require force feeding, I'm just saying that's the only two wild caught scorpions I have/had. Others are based on my other peers who are keeping more wild caught scorpions than me.

Inbreeding, good question. This thing has been highlighted long time ago but then again, we're all still pretty vague about the idea of inbreeding causing damage to inverts. For tarantulas, we all know it's near impossible and most of the time, even when it's possible, usually everything will turn out alright.

In theory though, inbreeding isn't exactly a bad thing actually, if you are well informed on the theory of genetics.

Inbreeding in theory is a step towards line breeding which is one of the best method to keep a long well kept generation of good genetics.

Although even so, you will have to somewhat out cross in between in order to assure good genetics.

Going full inbreeding in time can actually cause recessive genetic traits to emerge.

This post has been edited by Kar: Oct 28 2009, 08:16 PM