Lychas Mucronatus brood

I got two adult Lychas Mucronatus pair from Rafiqos on 11 February 2010, both have some white color egg like thing on them

I originally got 2pair but i gave one pair to another friend to let him get rid of those eggs like things on them

I used vaseline and dip away those eggs and it seems to be working quite well but the male died shortly after

Maybe i overdid with the vaseline or he die of other factors

Before that, i tried mating them but they was reluctant to mate so i left them both in their communal enclosure and concluded that the female might be gravid since she is quite plump

A few weeks after the male departed, the female gave birth, a large brood

She was all covered by babies, i roughly counted them and estimated that i have at least 30 babies

I misted the container everyday and on the 3rd day, they all molted to 2instar

One dead on substrate and the mom eaten it, the others are doing very well, clinging on the mom until the 2nd day

I counted them and i was right, i got 31 babies :D

I rehoused them all in individual small delicup container with a cork bark and one managed to escaped when i accidentally dropped the container =(

It ran behind my shelf and i was too tired to remove it and just continue rehousing the others

The next day i decided to remove the shelf and see if its still there and to my surprise, it's indeed still clinging on the shelf

I tried to cup it with a container and accidentally crushed one of it's chela =(

It's still active despite of the chela but to my surprise, the chela seems tto be working fine on the next day

Nothing much to write since the female was already pregnant when i got her so here's some pictures

Female with 1st instar

Close up

Size

2instar

Group hugs :)

Their individual container

The lost one, behind this shelf

Unrelated

Here's some prego scorp of mine, waiting to pop :D

Centruroides Margaritatus


Leiurus Quinquestriatus

Liocheles Australasiae


And Pandinus Imperator

The worst day in my invert hobby

9 March 2010, I was sooooo happy on this day, I got 3 mantis (Dead leave mantis, Orchid mantis and a Flower mantis) and 3 new scorpion (1.2 Centruroides Gracilis)

When i got back home on that day, i found that two of the female gracilis are dying!

Their legs are both curved in and lifeless, perhaps its due to the bad packaging method by the sender

I was told he flooded the container and the parcel was delayed for a week+ so perhaps they cant make it through the harsh environment.....

Ok, nvm, went to sleep and forget bout it

10 March 2010, i woke up and found my orchid mantis DEAD!!! Just freaking dead for no reason in one night!

She was so active and normal when i got her, she even eaten a mealworm!

I don't know is it because i forgot to make ventilation holes for her but as i know they can survive for quite sometimes without ventilation holes because we can send them through postage like inverts

I check on the scorpions and other mantis, looks normal and one of the female gracilis dead and the male dying....

I went to work, i came back and guess what? All scorpion and the flower mantis DEAD!!!! God damm it!

I was so frustrated on that day, its the worst day i ever been through ever since i start keeping exotics

One of the dead gracilis looks prego so i dissect her to see if there's any embryo inside her or not but i found nothing

Others i just put in fridge to preserve them, they ll be make into taxidermy in the future

Well, to make it worst, my balsasensis babies molted to 2instar but only 5 out of 10 make it through

They just died and drop on substrate after molted, i have no idea why, both humidity and temperature was around the same as the 1st batch when they molted

I already can't feel anything when i saw them, my mind was blank and just accepted it =(

Here's what they left for me, pictures only :(

Dead leaf mantis (Sorry for bad lighting, im a bad photographer)

Orchid mantis

Flower mantis

Look, he take down a big mealworm omg

Centruroides Gracilis

Male

Female 1

Dying suspected to be gravid female

See i can even turn her around

Dead and dissected

Nothing inside

Dead Balsasensis (One more i fed to my 1st batch)

PS: The dead leaf mantis was dead a few days later

Update of my Centruroides Balsasensis

It have been awhile, all of my 1st batch of Centruroides Balsasensis have molted to 3instar

So far 7died/missing (1missing, a few died of dehydration and one or two from cannibalism)

At 1st i wanted to keep them communally but it seems like it's not doing very well so i decided to separate all of them and they are doing much better after that

Their setup are easy, only some coco fiber as substrate and a piece of vertical cork bark

I feed them once or twice every week depending on my cricket stock and lightly mist one of the corner everytime i feed them

Though, the adult prefer to live in dry environment but the babies need more moisture to survive and molt properly from what i observe

That's because everytime i mist, i notice all of them will started to drink from the water droplet

Perhaps i will add water dish in each of them once they are big enough

Aside from that, one of my C.Balsasensis gave me another brood of 10 3days ago

It's a small brood compare to the previous batch but i'm not disappointed as i have two more gravid one

After having a tough time removing all the babies from the mother in the 1st batch as they all was hiding in small gap in the bark, i rehouse the mom with the brood on her back to another container consisting of plain substrate with some cork bark for hide

This way the babies wont have much hiding place to hide and i can get them removed easily

Here's some pictures to share

Their individual containers

One of the setup

2nd female with brood

Upclose

Her setup

This one is yet to pop...

The female that gave me her 1st brood mated again

Centruroides Margaritatus Breeding report

Temperature: Approx 29-31ºC

Relative Humidity: Approx 70-80%

Duration: Approx 8-10minutes

It's only third day since my female C.Margaritatus molted to adulthood and i got her mated today cause i'm getting impatient

I begin by putting the female into a large container full of coco fiber with 2 piece of flat surface and let her run around in the container and drop her pheromone

After around 5minutes, i put the male inside and he begin to juddering like mad instantly

I don't even need to guide him to the female, he just walk to her while juddering and straight away grab her by her tail and gave her a stung her to calm her down

The male then started to hold her hand and the dance begin

He cant seems to find the flat surface as the container they are in was too big (I did this so that the male have more space to escape after the mating) so i took the flat bark and put it behind them

Soon enough, they are both dancing about on the bark and started kissing

The male's front legs are vibrating as well and i observed a strange behavior which i have never read nor heard bout it before

The male pull the female up and stick his front legs below the female pectines and start stimulating her pectines

I'm not sure why it happened but it last bout 10sec before he put her down, dance again and repeat it for around 10timesAfter awhile finally he laid down a spermatorphore and dragged the female on it

As soon as the female took it, they started to sting each others and i stop them with tweezer and remove both of them

Now i just need to wait and observed to see if the mating was successful or not

So, here's some pictures

Male approaching female

The male raising up the female

From this picture u can see the male front legs below the female pectines

Sperm :P

Finally an update!

Sorry guys, i have been real busy, tired and lazy lately

A lot of time when i wanted to update my blog my internet line was slow like a slowpoke and i cant upload any photo and decided to try again another day and that alone delayed until now...

Ok so what happened during the period where i didn't update my blog was:

1. I got a new DSLR camera! D3000 with a +10 Macro lens

- Bro bought it and asked me to share, well i don't have a choice but this is definitely be great. Check out my new flickr album

2. All of my Centruroides Balsasensis molted to 3instar!

- Only 6left due to cannibalism and dehydration, i separated them and they all molted in a few days =D

3. Bought some new scorpion and a Tarantula

- A gravid Leiurus Quinquestriatus (With some heavy mycosis infection)

- A pair of adult Lychas Mucronatus (Sadly the male died yesterday, but the female looks gravid)

- A pair of Babycurus Jacksoni (Both died after a while zzzz)

- A Tityus Stigmurus (Death on arrival)

- A Psalmopoeus Irminia

- Ok, in the end i only got 2 new scorpion up till now... Fuck my life....

4. Sold my Mesobuthus Martensii to make space for my growing collection

- They all went to a good home :)

5. More molt

- Hottentotta Hottentotta (6instar), Centruroides Margaritatus (8instar) x2, Pterinochilus Murinus, Lasiodora Parahybana, Holothele Incei, Cyclosternum Fasciatum, Cyriopagopus Schiodtei and Psalmopoeus Irminia

6. Bred my Centruroides Margaritatus

- Been waiting for this for a long time! Full breeding report will be posted in the next update

7. Started to keep mantis!

- Found a small mantis in my friend's carnivorous plant and decided to keep it

Well i think that's all i can think of now...

Here's some pictures

1.0 Centuroides Margaritatus 8instar

Hottentotta Hottentotta

One of the Centruroides Balsasensis baby

Gravid Leiurus Quinquestriatus

New Psalmopoeus Irminia

Dead on arrival Tityus Stigmurus (Don't ask me, i have no idea what make it like that...)

New mantis

Can u spot it on the right side of the container?