Feeding Your Pet Scorpion
Crickets and locusts are the main options when it comes to feeding, and many exotic pet owners end up becoming insect breeders in order to facilitate scorpion feeding. It can become an interesting hobby in itself, and species such as Locusta migratoria and the Ecuadorian short-horned grasshopper can be interesting to observe. Insects can be kept is single plastic tanks with food as substrate.
The most important thing is to have a dry and hygienic set-up so that no bacteria that could be harmful to your scorpion start to build up. Finally, don’t make the water dish so deep that the insects drown themselves. In the wild scorpions eat spiders, lizards and snakes, but in captivity a diet of a couple of crickets a week is enough for most species. Feeding should take place at night since these are nocturnal species.
Housing Your Scorpion
Some scorpions are happy to be kept in groups, whilst others are loners, thus if you want to houses multiple specimens together you must select the species with care. The size of the terrarium will be dictated by the number of scorpions you decide to keep and the species. For example, for the large-clawed Scorpion, or Israeli gold scorpion, a habitat of three feet in lengths is suitable, whereas at the other end of the scale Bothriurus bonariensis can get by in accommodation less that one foot in length.
Specialist exotic pet terrariums are relatively cheap these days so this is your best option for housing. If you decide to adapt an aquarium or plastic box you should ensure that they are escape proof. Since most scorpions like to burrow they are not great escape-artists, but nonetheless you should not give them the opportunity. I have seen them climb glass, and smack quite vociferously at the lid of their housing. Make sure the lid is adequately sealed as finding a lost scorpion can be very challenging.
Since burrowing is a scorpion’s key activity you will want to get the substrate right, and peat, vermiculite, and moss are all suitable materials. The key is to make sure it is deep enough to facilitate burrowing. A shallow water dish should be provided, and you will enjoy observing your scorpion as it uses its pincers to scoop up water as part of the scorpion feeding process.
Some conditions will need to be fine-tuned depending on the species you select. African and Asian scorpions tend to like warm and humid conditions, whereas desert species, such as those from the Androctonus genera require a dry terrarium. A substrate of compost covered with bark chippings is ideal for a humid terrarium, whereas a desert set up should have a substrate of course sand.
You do not need to create artificial light for this nocturnal species, and as long as you maintain a heat of 25 degrees centigrade there is no need for artificial heating. If you do use a heat map to maintain this temperature you must ensure that it covers only a small portion of the set up and doesn’t make things too hot for burrowing. When scorpions get too hot they burrow to cool down, and unwittingly they may burrow onto the heat mat and kill themselves. In order to this you should have a thermometer, and some owners put the heat mat on the side of the terrarium rather than underneath it.
