Vaejovis carolinianus

Got a text message the other night at 2am from a good friend that read something to the effect of "Hey my girlfriend got stung by a scorpion.. you want it?"

Since we're in Alabama there were only two real possibilities in species and really only one considering where it was. That guess held true when I looked into the cup and spotted a Vaejovis carolinianus, the only Vaejovis sp. east of the Mississippi River.

Hes been eating pre-killed roaches so far because most of my roaches are bigger than him(mostly guessing on the sex). I may end up trying to start a colony of these guys..

My newest obsession: Theraphosidae (Tarantulas)

Last Thursday these little guys came from in from James Tuttle @ www.blaberus.com I had ordered some Blatta lateralis roaches from him to start a feeder colony but after reading a posting of his on arachnoboards.com I contacted him and got him to include these two 'slings' (spiderlings).

They arrived last Thursday (9/17/2009) after a two day journey from California. Both them and the roaches were perfectly healthy and happy. After I got them set up in their new containers they both ate and began to web up/excavate their new hiding places.

The guy on top is a gorgeous little Avicularia versicolor (Antilles pinktoe). A. versicolor are a glorious metallic dark cyan when young but upon maturing have purple legs, a blue/green cephalothorax and a reddish abdomen. Very nice! They are a New World arboreal species.

The second little guy is a Brachypelma vagans (Mexican redrump). They don't show too much color until they are adults whereupon they get a black velvety cephalothorax and abdomen with larger red setae growing through the black on the abdomen. B. vagans is a New World terrestrial species.

Hopefully I can manage to give updates on them and my new hobby.

why

I hope to use this blog to chronicle my latest obsessions and adventures and also to monitor those ongoing.