Pricing for Puerto Rican Giant Centipiede

JAFUENTES · Nov 20, 2015

In Puerto Rico the Giant Centipiede is known as an alacran. I believe it to be a variant of Scolopendra altrenans. However does anyone have experience with Scolopendra altrenans variant from Puerto Rico. I got one from a friend down there who found it in his house and saved it from his wife's broomstick while I was down there.

Mastigoproctus · Nov 21, 2015

JAFUENTES said:
In Puerto Rico the Giant Centipiede is known as an alacran. I believe it to be a variant of Scolopendra altrenans. However does anyone have experience with Scolopendra altrenans variant from Puerto Rico. I got one from a friend down there who found it in his house and saved it from his wife's broomstick while I was down there.

I have pretty decent experience with Keys Alternans which is very similar. What info did you need on it? I can give you a full care sheet if you need it.

JAFUENTES · Nov 21, 2015

However I'm not looking to sell. I just want to know what a good price would be if I sold him.

Mastigoproctus · Nov 21, 2015

$100.00 is fair for a true PR Alternans but if you wanted you could probably fetch $125 from a pede enthusiast. As for care, how big is it realistically so I can give you the correct info on substrates depth ect.??

JAFUENTES · Nov 21, 2015

About 4 inches right now.

Mastigoproctus · Nov 21, 2015

I would personally house it in a med Rubbermaid tote or 10 gallon aquarium with a tight fitting screen top that the pede can't squeeze through with 4" deep coco fiber/sand 30/70 mix and packed down good with moss on one side to keep humidity higher there. Also provide a water dish and a large rock for it to dig under. Alternans is real secretive and usually likes to stay underground. Temp can be 65F to 75F and keep the substrate slightly moist for the most part, NOT DAMP or WET. Throw a cricket or roach in the cage once or twice a week, if it doesn't eat after 2 days take it out and try they next week. This species never hand feeds idk why they just seem to only eat if you're not watching. It should get 6-8" since its a PR type. It will probably live 3-4 more years with proper care.

Galapoheros · Nov 22, 2015

Some think the Hispaniola pede next door in The Dominican is a variant also. Strange we don't have that figured out yet, or do we(?) Came across this vid, haha, watch out @10, made me laugh and disappointing at the same time of course but prob happens several times a day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ75lIpi8A

Mastigoproctus · Nov 22, 2015

Holy crap, I'm out here offering people $1000.00 for a single Hispaniola and these idiots just kill it. God I hate some people and the mass stupidity that exists in this world...

---------- Post added 11-22-2015 at 07:08 AM ----------

Galapoheros said:
Some think the Hispaniola pede next door in The Dominican is a variant also. Strange we don't have that figured out yet, or do we(?) Came across this vid, haha, watch out @10, made me laugh and disappointing at the same time of course but prob happens several times a day. [YOUTUBE]ToQ75lIpi8A[/YOUTUBE]

There is no scientific literature I have come across proving or disproving it to be Alternans but IMO if you look at the first tergite after the cephalic plate, it is clear from the obvious structure of the whole region of the body is definitive only to Alternans. Now I'm no pede expert let alone true pede scientist but I can tell you if you have a few Alternans like a Florida and a Hatian type knocked out in front of you, which I recently did, it does not take a scientist to see the similarities between both those types and the pede they call Hisaniola. Though I have never had a Hispaniola and so I haven't ever had a true 1 on 1 close up inspections of its upper body. I feel that could give me definitive proof but the things are so freaking hard to get ahold of. Mannn, That video was super upsetting on a lot of levels. To me it's like they just killed a person and lite $100.00s of bucks on fire at the same time. Probably the worst video ever made. Maybe I just have a weak stomach to that sort of thing. Thanks for sharing none the less.

Galapoheros · Nov 22, 2015

Yeah my jaw dropped at 10 seconds in, 90% of the population probably behaves that way. People have changed some in the last 10 or 15 years though. I remember whenever people saw a snake, they would run after it just to kill it. Now at least more say, "wow look at that, just leave it alone." Some older documents implied those Hispaniolas to be in the subspinipes group but that as a group has gone away now. It's been long thought by some hobbyists that the Hispaniola is a big alternans, it wasn't even questioned much on this forum 10 years ago, they just called it the big red alternans.

Mastigoproctus · Nov 23, 2015

Galapoheros said:
Yeah my jaw dropped at 10 seconds in, 90% of the population probably behaves that way. People have changed some in the last 10 or 15 years though. I remember whenever people saw a snake, they would run after it just to kill it. Now at least more say, "wow look at that, just leave it alone." Some older documents implied those Hispaniolas to be in the subspinipes group but that as a group has gone away now. It's been long thought by some hobbyists that the Hispaniola is a big alternans, it wasn't even questioned much on this forum 10 years ago, they just called it the big red alternans.

Really? I had no idea it was once thought to possibly be Subspinipes. Yeah the world is becoming more excepting of different or strange creatures. I hope someday that kind of behavior will all together stop but really doubt it ever will. The Big Red Alternans, I like the sound of that a lot more then Hisaniola hahaha

Galapoheros · Nov 23, 2015

My guess is that one or two people saw some large specimens and marketed them as something else other than alternans thinking, “It’s hard to believe this is alternans because of it’s size and I don’t see banding.” But neither of those characteristics hold much merit. Apparently it doesn’t take much to start such a thing. I saw a vid of an alternans with banding that looked to be at least 10 inches, was the same size as the adult gigantea next to it. I can’t find that vid anymore. They only thing that will clear it up 100% is DNA testing. I heard somebody was on it and I emailed them about it but, no reply. Just how hard is that to do, strange it takes so long, job security(?), it's been something like a year now.

Mastigoproctus · Nov 25, 2015

Galapoheros said:
My guess is that one or two people saw some large specimens and marketed them as something else other than alternans thinking, “It’s hard to believe this is alternans because of it’s size and I don’t see banding.” But neither of those characteristics hold much merit. Apparently it doesn’t take much to start such a thing. I saw a vid of an alternans with banding that looked to be at least 10 inches, was the same size as the adult gigantea next to it. I can’t find that vid anymore. They only thing that will clear it up 100% is DNA testing. I heard somebody was on it and I emailed them about it but, no reply. Just how hard is that to do, strange it takes so long, job security(?), it's been something like a year now.

Yeah all these large pedes are all mixed up taxinomically and I'm sure it's because of that. People also may have labeled it something else simply to make more money on it and it stuck. I'm pretty sure from what I learned in college, DNA testing shouldn't take more then a few weeks max but I've never needed to analyze DNA so know nothing about doing so. Maybe that's something I'll ask my grandmother about who has a masters in wildlife science and worked in the field for 30+ years so hopefully she can tell me the ins and outs of it. Hey maybe one of us hobbiests can get ahold of the equipment needed to do so and conduct the tests ourself haha unlikely though. Maybe someday all the Hispaniola Alternans and Gigantea Galapagoensis stuff will get straightened out.

JAFUENTES · Nov 26, 2015

I just saw the video and mine is a lot darker. I will try to get a picture as soon as possible. I saw other variants in EL Yunque while I was in Puerto Rico and they were darker than that.

numbat1000 · Nov 26, 2015

How large were the ones you saw in EL Yunque? Been there, but as it was years ago when I was a young kid and I didn't know where to look, I never saw any live. I do remember, however, finding a dead one in the backyard of the house I was staying in. As I was about seven, it seemed unearthly huge, even curled up and dry as it was, but it probably wasn't too big. I don't know, maybe six/seven inches. Still the most impresive and significant of my finds at that age. One of the main reasons I want to seriously venture into the myriapod hobby.
Also, I may be going back to Puerto Rico sometime soon, so any info on how common/where to find them would be greatly appreciated.

JAFUENTES · Nov 27, 2015

I saw some 8 inch plus monsters last summer. However I had to look really hard because of the drought that was going on though. They like rocks. Found most of them under rocks. Some in logs and small wood piles. Could've been just that day. My advice is to look everywhere moist. Be careful though the one's in EL yunque are very aggressive compared to the one's I found at my cousins house down there. Don't know why that was but just a warning. Also let some people you know down there that you want to see one alive and they might just trap it under a pan or Tupperware. My cousins landlord did that so I could see it.

kurgara galatur · Nov 27, 2015

wow. thank you.

Yet another seemingly innocuous thread that contains a half-ton of information. I like this covert ops invert education on offer here.

Thank you.
kurgara galatur

zonbonzovi · Nov 27, 2015

Has anyone that has both compared terminals, spur numbers/locations on each pair of legs, maxillipeds, toothplates, etc?

Mastigoproctus · Nov 27, 2015

zonbonzovi said:
Has anyone that has both compared terminals, spur numbers/locations on each pair of legs, maxillipeds, toothplates, etc?

I've never heard of anyone doing so and if they have I have yet to find the results anywhere online. Now if I could find a Hispaniola for sale I would do so but finding one seems impossible these days, I've made WTB posts a few times on a few forums and finally gave up looking. I know of a few members who do have both, maybe one of them will see this thread and do so. From pictures and videos there are real obvious similarities between Alternans and Hispaniola but that is in no way a proper varifacaton method, just reason for speculation. I really suspect it of being a big Alternans but who knows, I won't know unless I ever find one. A lot of this pede stuff is so mixed up its irritating and it will probably remain that way for years to come.

JAFUENTES · Dec 1, 2015

Maybe sooner if individuals with the proportion support would go and collect at most two individuals from each locality and brought them to an expert all at once it may be possible. You would also want to include the species they're consider by what the trade says they are? Get an S. altrenans from Florida and use that as a comparison species for the rest from the altrenans species because it the most common by what I have seen from the more tropical parts of the Americas and surrounding islands.

JAFUENTES · Dec 13, 2015

Proper. Not proportional.

Pricing for Puerto Rican Giant Centipiede

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Creeping beneath you

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