Today, after I had written the Diplocentrus bereai blog entry, and worked on the additional storage space in the stairwell, I decided to feed the 6 offspring of the female Diplocentrus bereai some termites I had captured yesterday. Of course I also wanted to take photos of those juvenile scorpions, hopefully in action.
The juvenile scorpions were born in July 2006. Of the seventeen I managed to isolate a month later, I managed to keep 6 alive when I switched to a better way of keeping those tiny scorpions (See: Taking care of Diplocentrus bereai juveniles).
When I put a termite with the first Diplocentrus bereai, which I had uncovered by removing a tiny piece of wood from its enclosure, the scorpion was not really interested. Probably due to the amount of light required to take some photos and observe what would happen.
In the above photo you can see the tiny scorpion and its uncovered burrow. The substrate is fine sand which I keep moist. Each juvenile scorpion enclosure is a tiny plastic cup with a diameter of about 5.5 cm filled with 2 cm of fine sand for burrowing. Each cup has also a small piece of wood, under which the scorpions like to burrow.
The above photo shows two scorpion burrows next to each other, made by the same specimen. Notice how each burrow is oval shaped. Four days ago I moved the mother of the six scorpions to a new enclosure with a similar substrate, hoping that she will also start to burrow.
When I checked upon the adult female she was still using the burrow I had made for her underneath the largest stone in her enclosure.