My Dune Scorpion is obese

sethandsteve

Arachnopeon
Joined
Feb 19, 2006
Messages
12
Hi,

I have a little dune scorpion, bought him about 6 months ago. When we got him he was small enough to fit in a camera-film tub, he was about an inch in length, and incredibly fast/aggressive. We put him in a glass tank thats less than a foot long, and feed him once a week on 3 small crickets. He will often have a cricket in his mouth and one in each claw.

He has a sand substrate which was dampened and baked to make it suitable to burrow in, which he has.

His heat mat is on one end of his tank, stuck to the side not underneath. As he was spending so much time huddled up against it and looked to be overweight we put a smaller (3inch square) heat mat at the other end. This was suggested to aid digestion as they slow down when cold, and make the entire thing better for him all round.

The thing is, he's REALLY fat. His little tail is pathetic in comparison to the rest of him. He is round and shiny, instead of lean and textured. I have a pair of desert hairies also, by comparison they should be very similar in shape and proportion, but this is not the case. My dune is definitely wider than he should be. His tank is definitely warmer than the one thats got the desert hairies in, they dont squash themselves against the heat mat after they've eaten so I dont think its lack of digestion through low temps.

He gets 3 small crickets a week, no more.
 

Michiel

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
3,478
It is obese

There are several options:

1. It is in the pre-molting phase;
2. It is gravid (I didn't read your post to well, so I don't know the sex)
3. It is obese.

1. Don't feed it anymore and raise the humidity slightly
2. Look if she feeds, if she doesn't feed anymore, don't feed it and wait;
3. Put it on a diet of 1 small cricket a week (which is enough in my opinion for such a small species).
 

JSN

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
Messages
683
yeah, mine started out as a lean-machine, but now I think he'll be molting before too long, so I can definitely see a size increase, and he hasnt eaten since I got him...
 

JSN

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
Messages
683
yeah, mine started out as a lean-machine, but now I think he'll be molting before too long, so I can definitely see a size increase, and he hasnt eatin since I got him...
 
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