Any Information on Housing Pairs of AFS?

[luis616]

i recently went to a reptile/herp store and saw that they had a pair of asian forest scorpions, living together. i love my asf and i wanna learn more about keeping them together- i've looked a ton online but a lot of the answers are conflicting, so i wanted to see how y'all feel, is it worth it, and what are your experiences cohabbing scorpions?

 

[MorbidArachnid]

This is one of those tricky questions, and it has a lot to do with what you consider acceptable risk. Me personally, I would hesitate to call any scorpion "social", and only a few are really communal. Tityus stigmurus for example are communal because in the wild they are frequently found in large numbers in "colonies", so they have some basis in nature as proof that they are alright being around each other, but even with scorpions like this I don't think 0% chance of cannibalism is realistic. Heterometrus are interesting because on the one hand, in the wild mother scorpions of some species can let the juveniles live in their burrows for a surprisingly long amount of time, I believe into 3-4i, and the juveniles do alright living together in their mothers burrow. Also in the wild, their burrows can be found relatively close to one another, so theoretically as long as they have enough space to be in their own burrows you shouldn't run into issues. I say theoretically because I've also seen people have communals with no issues for years, until one day they have one fat scorpion instead of a communal. No scorpion *needs* tank mates, even with scorpions that I would consider communal, keeping them together is more for your benefit than theirs. At best, they are neutral to tankmates and get along fine, at worst they get stressed from the other scorpion and die or cannibalism occurs. I would also never keep juvenile scorpions communally personally, even with my Tityus stigmurus I separated out the juveniles once they molted into 2i, just because molting is an extra risky state and a molting scorpion can easily be eaten or killed by a tank mate. That being said, people have had success keeping Asian Forest Scorpions communally, and they seem to be relatively neutral to each other provided you give them enough space and they're both adults. I've also heard anecdotally that males can fight each other but I can't back this up or speak to it at all. Personally, I don't think it's incredibly beneficial for them, but I do have adult Tityus and Centruroides scorpions in communal set ups. I wouldn't personally keep Heterometrus communally, but people do and have success with it, so it's more about where your personal risk/benefit scale lies for it.