Scolpendra polymorpha

kevin88

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 28, 2009
Messages
49
I have never raised pedes before but I was visiting my aunts house in the mountains and came across a few polymorpha's. I kept the largest one and it has been a very interesting specimen. It has a nice blue color. Thought I would share a pic.





Kevin
 

zonbonzovi

Creeping beneath you
Old Timer
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Oct 20, 2008
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3,346
wow- i have one with the exact some markings. where did you find them? a very rough location is fine.
 

kevin88

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Joined
Oct 28, 2009
Messages
49
Well I went and visited my aunt again... despite snow being on the ground I managed to find 2 young centipedes. They are about 2 inches in length. Now the most interesting part is how different the 2 look. one is from my aunts house (extremely forested) and the other was from my grandparents cabin ( dry and rocky almost no trees).

It appears that the population from my aunts are mainly orange with no blue in them. The ones from the cabin... appear to have lots of blue. Just an observation... heres the pics..its just interesting since my aunts house is only 1 MILE from the Cabin.





Kevin
 

plo

Arachnosquire
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Oct 22, 2009
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50
Both of those pedes are quite pleasing to the eye, how long are they ?
 

Teal

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Jan 11, 2009
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Wow, that one without any blue is REALLY pretty! I've never seen one that transparent around here!

We have the blue ones up here (we are about 5 hours north of Sonora).. I found a 4.5" one in the kitchen one time LOL
 

zonbonzovi

Creeping beneath you
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Oct 20, 2008
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Great finds. I've never kept a juvenile S. polymorpha, but something about the 1st pic(cremesicle) looks amiss. Specifically, the headplate is very narrow & the body extends quite aways out before the terminal legs begin. Anyone know if these are typical characteristics of a young polymorpha?
 

kevin88

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 28, 2009
Messages
49
hmm could be Im not sure. I do know that the two act completely different from each other. Once I open the container the blue one squirms everywhere. I open up the other container and it just kind of sits there. Kind of interesting.
 

nhaverland413

Arachnosquire
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Nov 8, 2007
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111
had a theatops from the sierras for a while it would carry prey back to its hide in its terminals rather interesting behavior.
 

peterbourbon

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Nov 25, 2007
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622
Hi,

first one belongs to the family Cryptopidae and Subfamily Plutoniuminae (you can see it by the big cylindric last tergite).

The fact that Plutonium is a monotypic genera with its type-species being distributed in mediterrarenean Europe, it's obviously a Theatops.

Based on given location I therefore guess it's a Theatops californiensis or Theatops posticus. To be sure you have to check the ventral side of the terminal legs:


(from Shelley, 2002 - A synopsis of the North American centipedes of the order Scolopendromorpha (Chilopoda))

On the left sketch you can see T. californiensis bearing spines on the terminal legs and somehow long spined processes on the caudal coxopleurons while T. posticus (right) lacks both.

Keep us updated!

Regards
Turgut
 
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