A scorpion giving birth

Thanks for the digg! Anyway, to answer some question I noticed in the comments: the babies do not come out of the mouth of the mother, but from an opening near the pectines (featherlike structures underneath the scorpion). The first photo on Scans of Diplocentrus species shows the pectines to the left and the right of a rectangular piece with a "half-round dent". The dent is where the opening is located.

The mother might eat her babies, but this mostly happens when she is stressed too much. If you're interested in scorpions in general (or other arachnids like tarantulas, vinegaroons, etc), this site has a lot of related photos, nature walks, etc. The easiest way to find something of interest is to use google, for example: site:johnbokma.com scorpions.

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Today, after Esme and I had returned from some shopping at Wal-Mart, I discovered that one scorpion was giving birth: a Diplocentrus species, probably Diplocentrus melici, which we had captured the 23rd of April, 2006. Later that day we captured another female. The latter gave birth some time ago, but shortly after died. My best guess is that it somehow got ill, and aborted the scorpions, none of which survived because the mother died before they were old enough to survive without her.

In the above photo you can see the scorpion giving live birth. In front of her, a baby is struggling out of its embryonic sac (not sure if it's that). Her front legs (not the claws) form a kind of cradle to catch the babies when they leave her body. One tiny newly born scorpion is climbing up. Baby scorpions ride on the back of their mother for the first week or so.

I am going to do my very best to keep as many alive as possible, probably using the same techniques as I use with the Diplocentrus bereai juveniles I keep. And since my hobby has its limits, space wise, I have plans to return the juveniles to the same location we captured the mother from after a year or so.

Diplocentrus melici related

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