Damon diadema with offspring

[Ranitomeya]

I've had this female for over two years and she's molted twice while in my care. She produced an infertile eggsac last year before I purchased a male for her. The male is half her size and I thought he wasn't yet mature, but the appearance of spermatophores let me know otherwise.

Here they are starting to hatch. This was taken last week.


Here they are all hatched out and on the female's abdomen as they prepare for their first molt.


Here they are molting out last night.


Here's after they've all molted tonight. I pulled the molts off the female and counted 58 molts. She had quite a few babies.

 

[dmina]

ewww. gosh.... I hate spiders... sorry, nothing personal... I am really trying here.... Is this the whip spider?

That mother is dedicated.. with all those babies all over her abdomen.. how long do they stay with her?

I have really got to start reading heading before I click.. but really nice pics anyway... LOL

 

[Danny.]

Congrats Ranito these are bad @ss! Any pics of the enclosure?

 

[MantisMatt14]

I really want one!

 

[kitkat39]

Awesome! My male is trying to mate, but the female seems like it could care less at the moment.

 

[Danny.]

I really want one!

Me too...

 

[MantidBro]

theyre so cool, im getting one some day, love them babies, amazing pics!

 

[agent A]

wanna trade a baby for an axolotl? seriously too cool

 

[Bloodtkr]

Cave spider i think ?

 

[Precarious]

Great job! And well documented! I keep finding spermatophore in my tank. Don't think my female is receptive yet.

 

[Jay]

ewww. gosh.... I hate spiders... sorry, nothing personal... I am really trying here.... Is this the whip spider?

That mother is dedicated.. with all those babies all over her abdomen.. how long do they stay with her?

I have really got to start reading heading before I click.. but really nice pics anyway... LOL

LOL! I second that, dmina! (=

 

[Ranitomeya]

They're commonly called tailless whip scorpions, even though they're not scorpions. Some people also call them cave spiders, even though they're also not spiders.

They're arachnids like both scorpions and spiders, but all three belong to different orders. They're nonvenomous and can do no more than poke you with their pedipalps if threatened. In my opinion they're as close to a praying mantis as you can get with arachnids.

The babies are supposedly communal and will stay with both each other and their mother until maturity or near maturity. I've been keeping the mother, a male, and another smaller female in a tank next to my computer with a pretty minimal setup. The tank is taller than it is long or wide and is set up with just a few halves of cork bark tubes. Humidity is kept up by just pouring water so there's a shallow pool on the bottom since they remain on the cork bark. There's no substrate in the tank.

The mother has remained with her offspring and I've actually observed her aggressively intimidating the other two whip scorpions to keep them away from the area her offspring are. I'll probably remove the smaller male and female so there's no cannibalism.

 

[dmina]

They are really cool... they still give me the hebe jebies... I kind of fast scim by the pics quickly... but I must say they are interesting.. and you did catch some awesome pics.. Just out of curiosity.. Do you hold them? ... Do they mind being held? or are they just pets you watch grow?

 

[Ranitomeya]

You can hold them, but you'd have to manage to persuade them to crawl onto your hand. You can't easily coerce them off their preferred surfaces as they'll very quickly just run around your hands. They also have an extremely good grip, so aren't animals you can forcibly pick up and their antenniform legs are prone to breakage if mishandled.

They're very skittish and can move very quickly when they feed threatened, so they're likely to skitter all over your arm and onto your body within seconds if you do get them on you. I've sometimes held mine and had to go to a mirror to figure out just where it's gone. They're extremely sensitive animals that can detect the slightest stimuli with their antenniform legs, so I suspect frequent handling would cause unnecessary stress.

 

[dmina]

That is very interesting... wow... thanks for sharing... Still not interested in becoming friends with it... but learning..is evolving...

 

[agent A]

so wat do the newborns eat anyway??

 

[baskmantids]

Iv recently found out about these while I was looking through Kevin's moonlightmantids site and thought they looked amazing. Like alien from out of this world. I someday hope to keep some of these my self. Are they really aggressive with prey items? And how London do they tend to live?

 

[Ranitomeya]

They prefer to feed on prey items that are small enough to easily grab with their pedipalps, so they'll be feeding on small crickets, small roaches, and fruit flies.

They're aggressive in their hunt for food only if you leave them alone. Disturbances will make them skittish and put them off hunting since they're sensitive to stimuli and use their antenniform legs to locate prey by air movement and vibrations. They're known to live for at least a decade.

 

[sschind]

Cool pictures.

I have read a couple of sources (can't find them now) that claim cannibalism can occur from about 3rd instar to adulthood and I have also read where they are completely communal. I'm guessing if there were to be any cannibalism it would be with the freshly molted ones. Just to be safe I have separated my youngsters.

I'd have to say they are one of the easiest inverts I have ever kept and my big female just molted again so I will be putting her in with the male soon. Sadly I lost my other female about a month after she aborted a batch of eggs. Not sure what happened there.