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Journal of Arachnology

Published by: American Arachnological Society

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Journal of Arachnology 36(2):476-479. 2008
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1636/Csh07-122.1

Notes on the life history traits of Rhopalurus rochai (Scorpiones, Buthidae) under different feeding regimes

Sarah M. N. Sarmento1, Adriano M. de Souza1, Marcos Vinicius Meiado2, and Cleide M. R. de Albuquerque1 3

¹Departamento de Zoologia /Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Avenida Morais Rego s/n, Recife – PE, CEP 50570-420, Brazil cleide.ufpe@gmail.com

²Departamento de Botânica/Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife – PE, Brazil

³Corresponding author. E-mail: cleide.ufpe@gmail.com

Abstract

Rhopalurus rochai (Borelli 1910) is a very common scorpion species found in the semiarid areas of Pernambuco State, Brazil. This work describes the life history traits of 1^st instar R. rochai such as litter size, development time, dispersal, and survivorship. The development of 2^nd instar juveniles under different feeding regimens was also investigated to determine the effect of food and body mass on intermolt period and number of ecdyses. Field-collected females displaying an enlarged mesosoma were observed daily in the laboratory to obtain newborns that were used to assess events in the 1^st instar. Females gave birth on average to 35.8 young (range = 23–55). The duration of the 1^st instar (from eclosion to ecdysis) ranged from 7 to 10 days (n = 179). Dispersal started as early as one day following ecdysis and lasted up to 9 days post-molt. All starved juveniles died between days 11 and 30 of the 2^nd instar. Increasing food ingestion did not enhance the probability of molting, but decreased risk of mortality and increased the time to the second molt. The relationship between the weight changes during feeding experiments suggests that the threshold weight for molt is 34.3 mg. Together these results suggest that developmental periods for R. rochai are slightly greater than those recorded for other buthid genera. These results indicate that there may be inherent physiological costs associated with rapidly increasing mass that may strongly impact foraging strategy.

Received: December 14, 2007; Revised: May 20, 2008

Keywords: Development time, dispersal time, scorpion, starvation, molt

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