Nuprin: Little, Yellow, Different Centipede

[cacoseraph]

Hello All,

This is Nuprin. I suspect he is just an interesting coloration of a Scolopendra polymorpha but have not actually used the key in Shelley's Synopsis. Nuprin is about 2.5-3" (6-8cm) body length

I really need to get better pictures. I want to try flash pics on a dark back ground. I think it might make the centipede look pretty neat.


zoom


zoom

[Steve-o]

Nice find! Interesting variation!

[Rowland Shelley]

Looks like a juvenile, which typically don't show adult colors. Rowland Shelley

[cacoseraph]

Originally Posted by Rowland Shelley

Looks like a juvenile, which typically don't show adult colors. Rowland Shelley

well, the reason why i am excited is that i have captive hatched something like 300 babies from adults caught in the same area... and all of them striped out at ~1"/2.5cm bodylength. in fact, for all of them, striping was evident this creature is already something like 3"/7.5cm bodylength. at 3" the specimens have full dark stripes. let me see if i can convince stupid photobucket to let me show you some pics


also, it is hard to tell from my crappy pics... but this guy has NO hint of any pattern ANYWHERE.

i need to take a lot more pics and see if i can find traces of dark pigment, cuz it sort of seems like it is missing all of a certain kind of pigment or something like that. i have read from phd hobbyists that the pigments in spiders are somewhat different than snakes, in the sense that one is like guanine or something like that so certain kinds of pigments must be present in at least like, trace amounts as they are critical to life processes like... but i still at least hope some kind of color abberations are possible and i have one.

oh, i need to relook up the 29 Palms area "ghost morph" polymorpha and post links.

[cacoseraph]

also, another thing i find interesting is that the area i collected nuprin at has produced something like er... 60-80 polymorpha and they have all had the same coloration, ranging from 1.5" bodylength to 5+" (4cm to 13+). i call it the toxic yellow morph. heh.

nuprin is almost the toxic yellow color... just lacking the black stripes


here is a toxic yellow mom and babies that haven't gotten any color yet. i've been told the blueish purplish tinting comes from the hemocyanin?



i'm looking for pics of those babies later

[cacoseraph]

well, i didn't find that brood, but i found some of my oldest kids. i think this dudes are approaching 2 years old now, but are 12-18months in this picture.

i only have a couple left. i used my first brood in a feeding experiment that went rather poorly for them.



here that baby is still small enough (probably ~2" bl (5cm) here) to have cyanotic legs and it already picked up it's stripes pretty prominantly... as has every little one from that area i have ever seen... THAT is why i am excited!

for sure, babies don't have the adult coloration... that's actually been true for me more times than not, species-wise.

[cacoseraph]

zoom


zoom

[cacoseraph]

zoom


zoom

[cacoseraph]

this centi is still with me and still stripeless.... and my buddy just found a ~4"/10cm BL specimen from the same area (in truth, i think it might be within 100'/30m of where i found nuprin) (see the larger, new pede, "Striper" here -> http://scabies.myfreeforum.org/sutra29502.php )

interestingly, cuz i am not a heavy feeder and do not artificially heat my cents this dude is barely 3" still




my buddy and i are hoping to be able to mate our two stripeless variants if they are 1.1 and mine is mature

i am hoping like crazy that my buddy gets offspring off of his, so we can maybe see if some are stripes and some are stripeless or what

[buthus]

My ears were burning...

Heres the new one we caught...





So... I think you explained this stuff to me...probably 4 or 5 times ...but being a space-case, plus im sure its nitty-gritty technical ...you'll have to go over it again for me... ...sooo... If it can be done, how do we sex this Tiger??