Scolopendra hardwickei Experiment
- Thread starter Lucas339
- Start date
08/31/09
from the last entry until now, there have been no new findings. feeding has been maintained and any frass found has been collected and placed in the sauce cups.
on the 28th i noticed the eggs on the frass that i collected on the 24th were turning gray. half of the egg was white and half was gray. today, the eggs are all gray and appear to be no longer viable. they are all gray in color and have changed from being nice and plump to having the appearance of small pieces of round clumped sand. one of the other cultures had mold all over it and was discarded. the remaining 2 cultures i have, are showing signs of molding. i removed them from the sauce cups and placed them in petri dishes with paper towel and did not over them. i hope this will stop the progression of the mold.
from the last entry until now, there have been no new findings. feeding has been maintained and any frass found has been collected and placed in the sauce cups.
on the 28th i noticed the eggs on the frass that i collected on the 24th were turning gray. half of the egg was white and half was gray. today, the eggs are all gray and appear to be no longer viable. they are all gray in color and have changed from being nice and plump to having the appearance of small pieces of round clumped sand. one of the other cultures had mold all over it and was discarded. the remaining 2 cultures i have, are showing signs of molding. i removed them from the sauce cups and placed them in petri dishes with paper towel and did not over them. i hope this will stop the progression of the mold.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2009
- Messages
- 1,327
this is interesting...keep us posted.
maybe its like the ovulation cycle in human women?
unused eggs discarded.
maybe its like the ovulation cycle in human women?
unused eggs discarded.
09/03/09
continued with feedings and attempts to hatch eggs.
this morning i did find something interesting. the female defected a small amount of feces. the interesting part was that there were alot of eggs that were not on the feces. they were next to the feces on the paper towel. it appears that she defected these out somehow. the paper towel didn't show any signs of a wet defecation that had dried up. earlier findings have shown that eggs are only present when the animal defecates from its digestive system and not its renal system.
i received a dead specimen preserved in alcohol. this specimen died in shipping. i plan on disecting the animal soon. i am looking for two things. 1. gut contents to see if i can find any type of internal parasites and 2. i want to see how big the venom glands are of this aimal. there is no information on the bite or toxicity of the venom for this species. in fact there is no information on this species other than taxonomic descriptions and location data.
continued with feedings and attempts to hatch eggs.
this morning i did find something interesting. the female defected a small amount of feces. the interesting part was that there were alot of eggs that were not on the feces. they were next to the feces on the paper towel. it appears that she defected these out somehow. the paper towel didn't show any signs of a wet defecation that had dried up. earlier findings have shown that eggs are only present when the animal defecates from its digestive system and not its renal system.
i received a dead specimen preserved in alcohol. this specimen died in shipping. i plan on disecting the animal soon. i am looking for two things. 1. gut contents to see if i can find any type of internal parasites and 2. i want to see how big the venom glands are of this aimal. there is no information on the bite or toxicity of the venom for this species. in fact there is no information on this species other than taxonomic descriptions and location data.
09/04/09- Disection Results
Last night I disected my preserved animal. as stated before, i wanted to find the venom glands of the animal and wanted to look at gut contents to see if i could find any parasites. this animal was much smaller than the one i am working on for the experiment. total body length was 12.4 cm.
The venom gland
the venom gland was not in the location my diagram suggested. the diagram suggested that the glands would be located under tergites one and two. this was not the case. the maxillipedes of this animal actuall extend into the body cavity all the way to tergite two. inside the body cavity, they are have covered with an exoskelton similar to the one outside the body cavity. there were alot of muscles in this area of the body. after some more digging around, i was able to locate the glands. they are actually inside the maxillipeds. they take up the entire second segment of the maxilliped. i would have to do more disections with other centipedes but this may suggest that the size of the maxillipeds can be used to determine the size of the venom glands. this in now way can be conclusive to venom strength, only venom volume. the bigger the gland, the more venom it can hold.
Digestive tract.
the digestive tract is similar to most arthopods. the mouth opens to the stomach. the stomach in this animal was seperated from the intestine by an S bend. this occurs around mid body. after the S bend, it is a straight shot to the anus. the gut is in the lower half of the body.
i opened up the entire gut of the animal to look for any internal parasites. this animal only had some unidentifiable arthopod remains in the stomach. they appeared to be broken up and chewed and show no signs of being mite-like.
from the spiracles, there was a network of tubes that ran though out the body. than ran both head to tail and dorsal to vental. i did not notice any nerves but i will review the photos.
the photos will be posted when i get around to editing them. they will be in a sperate thread.
Last night I disected my preserved animal. as stated before, i wanted to find the venom glands of the animal and wanted to look at gut contents to see if i could find any parasites. this animal was much smaller than the one i am working on for the experiment. total body length was 12.4 cm.
The venom gland
the venom gland was not in the location my diagram suggested. the diagram suggested that the glands would be located under tergites one and two. this was not the case. the maxillipedes of this animal actuall extend into the body cavity all the way to tergite two. inside the body cavity, they are have covered with an exoskelton similar to the one outside the body cavity. there were alot of muscles in this area of the body. after some more digging around, i was able to locate the glands. they are actually inside the maxillipeds. they take up the entire second segment of the maxilliped. i would have to do more disections with other centipedes but this may suggest that the size of the maxillipeds can be used to determine the size of the venom glands. this in now way can be conclusive to venom strength, only venom volume. the bigger the gland, the more venom it can hold.
Digestive tract.
the digestive tract is similar to most arthopods. the mouth opens to the stomach. the stomach in this animal was seperated from the intestine by an S bend. this occurs around mid body. after the S bend, it is a straight shot to the anus. the gut is in the lower half of the body.
i opened up the entire gut of the animal to look for any internal parasites. this animal only had some unidentifiable arthopod remains in the stomach. they appeared to be broken up and chewed and show no signs of being mite-like.
from the spiracles, there was a network of tubes that ran though out the body. than ran both head to tail and dorsal to vental. i did not notice any nerves but i will review the photos.
the photos will be posted when i get around to editing them. they will be in a sperate thread.
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2002
- Messages
- 2,514
I haven't posted anything on my findings because Rob never sent me a specimen. Obviously there's nothing I can report about these mystery poop objects. Simple logic dictates that since there is apparently nothing to lay them they aren't eggs. Rob said he was going to send me a centipede for observation a number of times he just didn't come through and never even sent me a message explaining that he changed his mind after sending a number of messages that he was sending it. Maybe he went on vacation and didn't have time but I think I've seen him post since then.
Spidercrazy
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Messages
- 135
Do the eggs you collected...
Did they in anyway look like nematode or eggs? Or did they look more like mite eggs. Can't wait to see the results
Did they in anyway look like nematode or eggs? Or did they look more like mite eggs. Can't wait to see the results
Spidercrazy
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Messages
- 135
Where'd he go?
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2007
- Messages
- 1,735
Rob died..
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 1,475
im sorry to hear.
Spidercrazy
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Messages
- 135
well now i feel like an idiot...im so sorry..
don't feel bad.