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- Jul 4, 2005
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I have 3 adults with striped legs (which probably means they are all female) and 2 of them are currently incubating 3rd and 4th stage plings. The largest is about 6.5" inches, and the rest are a little smaller. 9" sounds too big to me, but an old specimen might reach that size.
This is one of my favorite species. Cold, calculating, and intelligent, more so than the other hyperactive Asian centipedes, but has faster reactions and worse venom than New World species. When threatened, my largest female doesn't bother to hide, run, or attack. She just moves her legs in place, like she's tapping her feet as if to say, "Don't even think about it."
Actually, these are my newest centipedes and I haven't had them for more than four months or observed a molt! The first female dropped eggs about three weeks after I got her and the other a week after that. The smaller one has a smaller clutch, about 25, and the other, larger mother has a huge ball of at least 40.This info is great!
How many seasons have you had them? Ssp generally sexually reproductive at the 4-5” bl mark.
I’m looking for long term sizes (4 years+ Of observed growth) rather than sexually mature specimen lengths as those are two very different things. I saw your post on the eggs, kudos to that!
Are you implying that males have a different color pattern on the legs? I haven’t read if that before.
Actually, these are my newest centipedes and I haven't had them for more than four months or observed a molt! The first female dropped eggs about three weeks after I got her and the other a week after that. The smaller one has a smaller clutch, about 25, and the other, larger mother has a huge ball of at least 40.
These are probably wild caught so their age is not known, but you are probably right that they will reach a larger size than they are currently.
In Orin McMonigle's centipede handbook, he claims that males of hainanum have solid orange legs and females have striped orange legs; he provided examples of each. This thread claims the exact opposite, however. All of mine are striped and two are female, so that proves that thread wrong about males being striped. Most pictures I have seen of this species appear to have either striped legs or patternless legs, but I do not doubt there are intermediate patterns, such as only the last few legs having stripes. I hope that this is a valid method for sexing this species; it would make them easier to breed, but I am somewhat doubtful of this theory as well.
I am very leery of bites, especially from this species, and I also do not want to stress them by knocking them out, so I'd rather not sex the undetermined. However, as I have 100+ plings on the way, I will keep a good number of each and see if some develop stripes and others do not.
Am I the only one who noticed that some Asian keepers seem to be able to get their pedes to achieve greater sizes than usually expected? One posted a pic of a 30cm S. dehaani a while back....There are some photos I've seen of Facebook from Asian keepers, with rulers, showing enormous 25cm specimens...
My hunch is that size is a random genetic thing going on, just as with mammals and with people for example. You can't grow a miniature poodle to be a big poodle with nutrition, it's genetic. I think it has to do with millions of years of evolution and dealing with gravity changes as it relates to physics over time along with prey that is available. Taking a look at fossils, everything tended to be larger in size millions of years ago, leading to the speculation that gravity may not have been as strong as it is today(related to physics there), there could be more than one reason why that would have been so, the rotation speed of the earth, something to do with the molten core, earth size, and this is going to sound even weirder, ...there is the existence of dark matter expanding "everything" so was the planet smaller due to that? So maybe these genes are buried deeper from the past and are expressed now and then just to check if the conditions are more beneficial to an organism being larger size. So, then a unique large specimen pops up now and then, it's just genetic imo.Am I the only one who noticed that some Asian keepers seem to be able to get their pedes to achieve greater sizes than usually expected? One posted a pic of a 30cm S. dehaani a while back.