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This one I took about 12 years ago in Yucatan. I was inspired to post it because I saw other photos of arachnids showing off their babies ;)
More babies:
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Arachnology
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I love watching scorpions raise a brood. My husband and I used to breed scorpions. We never had these guys though.
Okay this inspired me to find a brood pic. This group of babies came from one of our emperor scorpions. I think the babies were at 3rd instar but it's kind of hard to tell in this pic.
Woah - that's a lot of scorpions! It's really cool that you would breed them!
My husband and I used to do it as a hobbie. We've talked about getting back into it since the market for captive bred scorpions has substantially increased but we really don't have the space for tanks anymore.
And is this something that you would only want to do at large scale? What about breeding fewer scorpions in a smaller tank?
Definitely don't want to breed on a large scale. Emperor scorpions aren't communal so everyone needs to be kept separate. But a basic set up would be 4 10gal tanks. One tank for a female, one tank each for two males, and the final tank for the babies once they leave mom. Once the babies are big enough to turn on each other they get moved into small critter keepers until they are established enough to sell. So this would take up a full size bookshelf and a few power outlets. We slowly phased out keeping inverts over the years as I started focusing on my parrots who now get the spare bedroom all to themselves.
Got it! From the image that you shared of the scorpion moms with their babies I got the impression that they were at least tolerant of each other and that it was possible to breed them with high-densities. But I suppose the level of 'communality' shown in your picture is only possible for females? Perhaps only for a short period while they are raising their young? Or was the picture taken during a special occasion in which you put them together for a short period of time?
There are communal scorpions but emperors aren't. Babies usually hangout on mom's back for a little bit. Once they crawl off mom's duty is done and she'll eat them if kept together. The babies can be kept together for a short time so long as you feed them pretty well. But even then you might lose a few. When we used to do this we weren't interested in making money so if we lost a few to the thunderdome it was no big deal.