Scolopendra Heros Arizonesis molting?

ZombieDan

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Apr 18, 2008
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Scolopendra Heros Arizonesis molting? Help please!

Today I picked up his water dish to take a look at him and he has all the premolting symptoms from what I've heard. His colors are really dull and he's really bloated in a small section in his midsection and the legs on those segments don't seem to move anymore. His head and earlier segments look really skinny.

Does anyone have any advice I could follow to make sure his molt goes smoothly? He seems to be submerging his head for long periods of time in his water dish. What should I do?
 
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zonbonzovi

Creeping beneath you
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Hey Zombie- make sure the ambient humidity is good. I know a lot of people keep their tanks dry as a bone for this species, but when it molts in nature, it would seek out a safe, moist area. I really don't think it would hurt to mist, at least until it's done molting, anyway. As long as it has a hide & no prey tooling about in the tank, it should be fine.
 

ZombieDan

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Success!! Pics

He successfully finished his molt :D here's some pics

Before





After




He hasn't finished hardening yet and hasn't eaten his shed skin yet, but I'm gonna say it was a success.
 

KyuZo

Arachnoprince
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very nice. I wish that i still have mine. he got stuck part way through his molt:(.
 

zonbonzovi

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:drool: It's weird that the dark coloration on the head & tail almost entirely disappear premolt. Very nice creature. Can you tell yet whether it has added any length with this molt?
 

ZombieDan

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Out of all the centipedes I've owned this one eats the slowest. He's still eating his skin and I haven't seen him stretch out fully yet.
 

ranchulas

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:drool: It's weird that the dark coloration on the head & tail almost entirely disappear premolt. Very nice creature. Can you tell yet whether it has added any length with this molt?
I was thinking the same thing. Looked like a pre molt heros heros at first. Nice pede!
 

Galapoheros

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I kind of imagine the cause for the color change like this. If I'm in a giant, opaque plastic bag, and the plastic is attacked to my skin with no air, filling every skin fold, you're going to see me pretty well, but if you detach the plastic, you're not going to see my colors very well while I'm in the plastic bag. You won't see my hair color very well, my eyes, ...it would just look kind of blurry. I think that's the idea of what we see when the old exo detaches from the pede, we just don't see the colors very well through the old detached exo while it's still inside it. That's how it looks to me anyway.
 

KyuZo

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I kind of imagine the cause for the color change like this. If I'm in a giant, opaque plastic bag, and the plastic is attacked to my skin with no air, filling every skin fold, you're going to see me pretty well, but if you detach the plastic, you're not going to see my colors very well while I'm in the plastic bag. You won't see my hair color very well, my eyes, ...it would just look kind of blurry. I think that's the idea of what we see when the old exo detaches from the pede, we just don't see the colors very well through the old detached exo while it's still inside it. That's how it looks to me anyway.
Wow, that's a great analysis, :worship:
 

Draiman

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Awesome colors, and congratulations on the successful molt. :)

It's molting season now, isn't it? My 6" S. subspinipes subspinipes "Java" is in very heavy premolt as well; her headplate is so extended it's almost falling off. She is going to molt tonight, I am certain of it. I'll be sure to post the pictures!
 

ZombieDan

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It's been a long time now and it still seems like his back half hasn't hardened. The dark area on his back half doesn't really move that much either, he's walking really slowly and kinda worming his way around. Is that normal cuz I'm kinda worried. He responds to poking n being blown on but not very quickly :/
 

Galapoheros

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Of course it takes several days for it to harden and it's best to kind of leave it alone for at least a few days. But it looked like something was weird to me in the first pic. The ninth segment going up from that last looks smaller, that one with the small dark spot on it in the first pic. And all the tergites were lighter than the rest starting there and going down to the last tergite in the molting pic. There could be something wrong with it:confused: .
 

KyuZo

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Of course it takes several days for it to harden and it's best to kind of leave it alone for at least a few days. But it looked like something was weird to me in the first pic. The ninth segment going up from that last looks smaller, that one with the small dark spot on it in the first pic. And all the tergites were lighter than the rest starting there and going down to the last tergite in the molting pic. There could be something wrong with it:confused: .
I think that i see what you are talking about. It looks like it is kinda constrict in that area. it could be the angle and the lighting?
 

Galapoheros

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Yeah that was it. I see it in the first and second pic. The second half of the pede looks a little wider:confused: , don't know but something looks kind of off to me. Hey Dan, can you post a more current pic?
 

szappan

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Congrats on the molt! Looking forward to more pics if you can, the 13th segment being smaller is very interesting.
 
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