New pede - few pics

Hey all - just a quick Hello and a few pics of my new pede, a 5"(-ish) S.hardwickei.

I've got a few years experience of Ts and scorps under my belt abd ad vowed never to get into pedes due to their bad reputation. Then I saw the hardwickei for sale..... Oh my dear God, what a stunning creature and surprisingly chilled out (though it sure can move when it wants to).

I'm keepng it in a simple setup with lightly damp coir substrate and the obligatory cork bark hide. Temp is in the 75 - 80F range.

I've read from other posts that they make use of height when available and was wondering whether anyone's tied them in the 18x12x12" Exoterra Terraiums?

One question - I've had it a week now and it's showed no interest in food at all. (I've only tried twice - a couple of black crickets on Friday last and a dubia roach earlier this evening - I don't want to disturb it too much during its settling in period). I'm putting the lack of appetite down to the stress of shipping and / or an imminent moult. Does anyone have any other suggestions regarding appetite or environmental conditons?

Being from the Indian sub-continent, do they benefit from a humid / dry cycle or is maintaining them on a damp substrate permanently the way forward?

Any advice to keep it healthy and "happy" would be gratefully receved.

Few pics:

Hey there and welcome to the hobby of keeping centipedes. if it's refusing food twice, then it's likely that your pede is approaching a molt. altho, if you are going to attempt to feed it again, then prekill the cricket or roach completely (no moving legs at all) and leave it in with the pede overnight.

my concern with your new pede is that it could be a little chubbier. as with my pedes, i like to keep them on the chubbier side (especially when they are about to molt, or suppose to molt). when buying an animal, you should check to see if it's eating, prior to your purchase, if it's possible. if it's fat and not eating, then it's shouldn't be a worry. if it's thin and not eating, then you should be concern.

always keep the substrate slightly moist or moist, but not damped. centipedes like to stay under rotten logs and rocks where it's moist. during the dry parts of the year, they'll dig down into the ground and stay until the condition are more favorable.

the girl on the top picture is about to molt and she is nice and fat. the guy at the bottom is not, but he's still has a nice girth to him.

Nice! Were on earth did you get such beautiful specimens?

Congrats on the new centipede. Its looks awsome!

The first thing I noticed is something Jason pointed out, it looks too thin to me also. The tracheal tubes stick out a lot, you can really see them in the orange segments. Imo healthy looking hardwickei have the orange segments that are brighter looking, more like the last segment of your pede where the tracheal tubes aren't as noticeable. It's a cool looking pede, hope it pulls through.

yeah, i was comparing the tracheal tubes on his pedes to mine also. i can barely see them on mine. it's like when someone is skinny, you can see their veins kinda thing. Then I remember the thread that you posted a while back about the disease that occasionally occur only in the north american S. heros subspecies with the overgrown tracheal tubes... could it be...?

Hmm, who knows, it's strange. I don't know what causes that now and then, if it's a disease or something else.

Congrats!They are beautiful

Thanks for the replies, guys - much apreciated.

I'll try a couple of pre-killed prey animals this evening and will report back tomorrow.

I take it the marbled appearance on the orange segments is due to the enlarged tracheal tubes? I'd put the loss of colour down to a pre-moult fading, as seen in Ts, so thanks for the heads-up. (My supplier mentioned that it was a rarer yellow variant - I take it that's largely B.S.?)

Thanks again and fingers crossed.
Dave

I don't know how many variable there are in this specie. i do know that India rarely export animals or if they ever. So it's rare that these guys got out and into our hobby.
I don't know if those tracheal tubes are at their normal size or if they're actually enlarged, but those are suppose to be their trachs.

I hope that the little guy pull thru. once it makes it thru the first molt in your care and start eating again, then you're in the safe zone.

altho, these are seen more often in Europe than in the U.S.

Evening all....

I'm absolutely delighted to report that my wee beastie has eaten.

And eaten

And eaten...

It was eventually sated on its 9th cricket (each one about the length of the head and first two body segments).

After reviewing all your posts I suspect the poor thing was starving - it was sluggish at first and had difficulty catching the prey but by cricket #4 had developed a good turn of speed and had no difficulty in nailing the rest. It had a good drink of water and has vanished back under the bark.

What would you recommend as a feeding schedule for the next week or two? Feed it daily as much as it wants to eat?

Thanks again for your advice - much appreciated - and I shall post updates as-and-when.

Good to hear that it's eating. I wanted to add that there appears to be slight mycosis on the left antenna and some of the legs. That suggests that it was being kept too moist before it came to you. I noticed the same on my one and only specimen. It seems that these are being successfully kept drier than most, although not as dry as desert species. For those of you keeping multiple hardwickei, is this the case? The range that they come from is also much cooler than is typical of India.

beautiful pede glad it's doing great for you,yeah i believe they like it alittle on the drier side, i need some of these for my ever growing pede collection

HairyCelt said:

What would you recommend as a feeding schedule for the next week or two? Feed it daily as much as it wants to eat?

Click to expand...

After it's a little fatten up like in the second picture i posted, then i would feed it only once and sometime twice a week.

What an excellent specimen!

zonbonzovi said:

It seems that these are being successfully kept drier than most, although not as dry as desert species. For those of you keeping multiple hardwickei, is this the case? The range that they come from is also much cooler than is typical of India.

Click to expand...

the substrate in the second picture that i posted is how i normally keep it, sometime it'll get more moisture like the first picture because i would accidentally add too much water into its water bowl, but i would just let it dry out slowly and this would normally like about 2 weeks.

Just a quick update....

The animal seems to have settled down into a routine of wanting to eat every 8 or 9 days. It's not gained any weight but otherwise appears healthy and active.

Does anyone know whether this species randomly drops spermatophores to be picked up by the females? During routine maintenance I discovered something covered in substrate, roughly twice the size of a grain of rice which, when compressed, was pasty and white.

If this is a spermataphore, does anyone know whether they can be packaged in damp kitchen roll and posted? If so it could be a nice way of attempting to breed the animals without risk to the specimens.

This also got me to wondering whether there was an element of sexual dimorphism in the species, with males being smaller and less massive than the females, as reported in S.mirabilis (McMonigle, 2004). This might explain the thin appearance of my animal???

(Now I've allowed the substrate to dry out a bit the signs of mycosis seem to have disappeared, so many thanks for the heads-up on that one)

HairyCelt said:

During routine maintenance I discovered something covered in substrate, roughly twice the size of a grain of rice which, when compressed, was pasty and white.

Click to expand...

I believe that is their excrement. I too encounter this before, just clear it away. Nice pede by the way, good to hear its settling in .

Definately centi-poop.

"Centi-poop"

Love it!