pede mating vid

[CodeWilster]

Hi Galapoheros + CodeWilster,
I had a internet problem and I couldn't play videos until now.Galapoheros that
was a great video and Cody that was a nice try.Was that your frist try breeding
pedes.Pedes usually don't do what you want.But keep on trying.Your real close
to getting that pair to breed.By the way Cody.You got it bad.Your our hooked
on pedes and theres no going back.

Yeah I know Rob lol they are so friggin' awesome I can't help it. I have to really watch myself though. And I am not sure what vid you are talking about. My very first try breeding any pede was my first video (third post of this thread) and was a success....beginner's luck! Since then I have been sporadically throwing other pedes together. No luck on the others except for the E. trigo's did show some flirtation (so I posted it). And yeah they certainly do not exactly do what you want, except when feeding time comes around

 

[zonbonzovi]

"Point being...find what the conditions are naturally for the breeding and non breeding season and recreate them."

This is the esp. tricky part, IME. Not too many academics studying them & I'm guessing it's quite rare to see an actual mating in the wild. I recall reading that E. trigonopodus "may" use abandoned termite mounds to mate in which would preclude observation unless you have NeoGeo's equipment/budget. Fortunately, we do have the experience of various hobbyists that have had successful matings- it would be interesting to collect info. regarding the conditions in which these pairings were made as well as conditions observed when finding females on eggs in the wild. Anybody down for a thread?

 

[zonbonzovi]

Had a good rain last night & the kids were pretty active, so a pairing was in order. After 30 minutes of hide & seek, they settled down & the tapping of the terminals started. They shifted into several different sections of the tank over about 2 hours. Intermittently, the 'pede in front would pull forward, back up slightly & the rear 'pede would follow & continue tapping. Unless I missed something, no spermatophore was deposited. Here's some tappin':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b6nitJOkFI

Sorry for the caffeinated videography...

 

[Galapoheros]

That was interesting, I've never seen subspinipes sexual behavior before. Did you see any terminal shaking? As far as environmental conditions go, I cool down heros pedes in the winter, like I would native reptiles. The rainy season for trops, right(?) With heros pedes, I've seen that if one doesn't do much terminal shaking when it's being tapped on, it's usually been the same sex.

 

[HaploFool]

Absolutely fascinating... thanks for posting this!

 

[zonbonzovi]

No pronounced terminal shaking...the "tapee" would spread its terminals farther apart as the tapping increased...nothing that can't be seen on Cinemax late night, really. Looking at the monsoon seasons for the presumed locales that this ssp. comes from: coastal/central China mirrors the SW U.S. & Vietnam runs Dec-Feb. Kinda narrows down a potential mating seasons if the "rain trigger" is accurate.

 

[Galapoheros]

No pronounced terminal shaking...the "tapee" would spread its terminals farther apart as the tapping increased...nothing that can't be seen on Cinemax late night, really. QUOTE]

Ha!, lol! If it was a male being tapped on, seems like there should have been some shakin goin on! The tapping in the vid looked identical to heros, but who knows what the diff might be with other steps and subspinipes... Hope to see more vid.

 

[szappan]

spread its terminals farther apart as the tapping increased...nothing that can't be seen on Cinemax late night, really

lol... nice one...

And nice set-up you've got there! Good luck with the matings!

 

[zonbonzovi]

"If it was a male being tapped on, seems like there should have been some shakin goin on!"

I wish I could confirm by the behavior- maybe some Jerry Lee Lewis on the stereo next time? Got a few more s. subs & s. de haani's to rotate in...

"And nice set-up you've got there! Good luck with the matings!"

Thanks-that's my favorite tank. Next to the couch, climate controlled, always ready for an impromptu mating(with or w/o TV, LOL)

 

[snappleWhiteTea]

i only got to see there first vid, but it was cool!

 

[szappan]

Here's a quick clip of Ethmostigmus trigonopodus "blueleg" flirtation note the differences between the two, especially in girth...(you only really need to see the beginning of the vid)

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Hey CodeWilster! (or anyone else for that matter),

After watching this vid again, I'm wondering if this isn't more of a territorial / dominance dispute that our good man Galapoheros detailed here.
There's so much for us to still learn about these guys, but is it at all possible that the smaller one was trying to size up the larger one... just speculating :?

 

[peterbourbon]

Hey,

first of all: Thanks for your fantastic work, the videos, especially Galapoheros' is epic! Well done!

For the last Ethmostigmus-video:
This indeed looks a bit like territorial dispute on the one hand, but I remember JGE Lewis wrote in his "biology of centipedes" that some Ethmostigmus species mate "directly" without all the webbing- and picking-up-stuff (as far as I remember correctly, maybe Andrew "cacoseraph" can confirm since he knows the book better than me).

Never seen that with my own eyes though, but maybe a useful idea.

Regards
Turgut

 

[CodeWilster]

Interesting! I have about 4 of these and those two were the only to act that way, the others were very aggressive toward one another and would run away, bump into eachother, wrestle, run away again, etc. This was the only "mellow" pair that acted the way they did in the video and so I sort of assumed it was mating behavior, plus the noticeable distance in size and girth between them also made me somewhat confident. We'll see, I haven't put them together since but I will certainly try again very soon.

 

[Galapoheros]

That was pretty cool!, and I'm betting there is a pair there, the smaller being the male like you were thinking. That's the same behavior I see in the heros pedes(!) when they seem to be unsure about each other. This is how it looks to me with the heros, if they are "out in the open" it looks like, no matter the sex, they are not going to be comfortable and will eventually get into a fight if they are in a confined area. What looks necessary to me for a male heros, is a space he can crawl through that is small enough to keep the female from moving past him while he spins that web tunnel. I think this is why they are found in broken up, rocky areas. The female seems to keep trying to push the male now and then while, with his terminals, he acts like a traffic controller, or maybe a bouncer, pushing her back sometimes, until he says it's OK to go through. I may be biased because I've only messed with heros breeding but I would bet it's the same for the trigs too. I'd stack some rocks in there, or anything webbing will stick too and make semi-tight fitting places, it seems to be what makes them feel safe to escape the other too. It looks like spaces to go through that are the leg span of the pede are good. In the first vid in the thread, that is why you see me pick up and place that small rock where I did, I could see it needed to be tighter there for the webbing. You can see that it was feeling for surface area with it's feet, that's when I put the rock there, that's when it seemed more comfortable to spin webbing. I bet it's the same for most Scolopendra, not all of course, just speculating there.

 

[PoPpiLLs]

I'm planning on attempting some breeding soon with S. subspinipes "de haani" and S. alterans "Haiti" and I was wondering whats the best way to break up fights without losing a pede or being bitten.

 

[Galapoheros]

I use chopsticks and tongs. I think I have "breaking a fight" vid somewhere, but I never posted it. I'll look for it. If I find it, I'll post it here.

 

[PoPpiLLs]

Thanks Galapoheros I would be nice to see that video if you can find it.

 

[Galapoheros]

I found it, it's real short because I had to drop the camera and rip them apart, I will try to remember to upload it later but you can't see much. I saw a lot more later after the camera was turned off as I tried to separate them.

 

[Galapoheros]

I looked at the short vid again, it's really pretty worthless, it wouldn't do any good to post it. I couldn't hold the camera and take them apart at the same time.

 

[szappan]

Ask Santa for a tripod