Blue babies

I've got 26 baby pedes. I believe they are Scolopendra polymorpha blue morph, but I'm not sure. The flash kind of washes out the colors, however they still look cool. If you have any ideas as to the species ID or could help I'd be thankful. I fairly certain they are not viridis as I'm keeping them as well.


John

Looks like the blue morph S. polymorpha to me.

how big is that adult?

Nice, AZ! Uh...whatcha going to do with them?:drool:

gotta love blue...

How big is the mother.

This might be a hijack, but here’s a story about a blue centipede. I was in Costa Rica about 30 years ago near Punta Banco way to the south near Panama. There was a steep embankment and a large rotten log about halfway. I wanted to dig in that log so I started to climb down the embankment, but it was damp and I slipped and before I knew it I was sliding down the hill at a very good clip on my butt just like in the movies. I had my feet out in front of me and I hit the log going pretty fast. The log was very rotten and it kind of exploded when I hit it. I found myself sitting in the pile of wood chips I created. As I sat there afraid to move because I didn’t want to start sliding again, a six inch very blue centipede ran across my leg. It had yellow tipped feet and was very stocky. It was fast and ran into the wood chips right next to me. I spent an hour searching for that pede and I could never find it. That was the only blue pede I ever saw in the wild. Is anyone familiar with blue pede from Costa Rica.

Satellite Rob said:

How big is the mother.

Click to expand...

Sorry the female is about 4-5".

John

can you get good pics of both antennas?

we would be looking at the er, hairiness of them. hirsute antennomeres reflect light in a crazy fashion, smooth ones do not. hirsute a's look like... iridescent on the edges, kind of... but only in pics and/or flash pics


if it has <=7 smooth ants then it is viridis
if it has >=7 smooth anats then it is polymorpha

i could be misremembering a bit there, i haven't looked at my centipede infos for over a year now

cacoseraph said:

can you get good pics of both antennas?

we would be looking at the er, hairiness of them. hirsute antennomeres reflect light in a crazy fashion, smooth ones do not. hirsute a's look like... iridescent on the edges, kind of... but only in pics and/or flash pics


if it has <=7 smooth ants then it is viridis
if it has >=7 smooth anats then it is polymorpha

i could be misremembering a bit there, i haven't looked at my centipede infos for over a year now

Click to expand...

I'll try for the pictures this evening. I'll need some help interpruting them.


John

Pictures

Thanks John

I see 10(?) hirsute segments- if Caco is correct, it is S. polymorpha- always wondered what size the "blue phase" adults reached.