THE COURTSHIP AND MATING OF THE SCORPION, OPISTHOPHTHALMUS LATIMANUS

Abstract

Summary. The courtship and mating of the scorpion, Opisthophthalmus latimanus, are described. In normal courtship the male initially grasps the female with his claws and then grips her chelicerae with his own, relinquishing his hold upon her pedipalps. In this position the animals perform a “promenade à deux”. It is suggested that one function of the “promenade” is concerned with obtaining a clear area suitable for the deposition of a spermatophore. The male deposits a spermatophore on the ground and pulls the female over it, so that part of the spermatophore enters her genital aperture. The pair then remain still for about five minutes; then they break apart. The events accompanying unsuccessful courtship are described and suggestions are made as to the origin or significance of certain aspects of the behaviour pattern. The similarity between the mechanism of insemination of this scorpion and the pseudoscorpions is considered.

Courtship and Mating in the Buthid Scorpions

“…At other times, however, each oval gland contains a viscous fluid which solidifies very quickly in air. The contents of each gland form the pedal wings ; similar structures have been described in the scorpionid, 0. latimanus (Alexander, 1957). In P. plunicauda the oval glands do not receive their contents from the ampullae of the vasa deferentia, as reported for B. quinquestriatus (Abd-el-Wahab, 1957), but the walls of the gland itself appear to secrete the material forming the pedal wings.…”

“…planicauda though it has occurred in every promenade of T. trinitatis which I have watched. It cannot be distinguished by anything but its context from the pattern of the same name in 0. latimanus (Alexander, 1956(Alexander, , 1957. A single bout of juddering consists of five to eight rapid forward and back movements of the whole body, while the feet are held still on the substratum.…”

“…In neither species does the female run away but normally remains for a short time after the male ,has released her and, in such cases, she will lower her prosoma on to the ground and, with the operculum held open, move the genital opening backwards and forwards along the soil surface. Similar behadour has been observed in the female of 0. latimanus (Alexander, 1957) and it seems possible that it is concerned with ensuring that the sperm penetrate deeply enough.…”

“…Fabre never observed scorpions mating however. Recently Biicherl (1956) has given a description of the mating in the buthid genus Tityus, while a brief statement, added to a paper on scorpionid courtship and mating (Alexander, 1957), reported that mating in Parclbuthus planicauda POC. is similar to that which had been reported in other scorpion families, namely that there is uptake of sperm from a spermatophore deposited on the substratum by the male, a phenomenon which had been reported for the Chactidae (Angermann, 1955), the Scorpionidae (Alexander, 1956) and the Bothriuridae (de Zolessi, 1956).…”

Scorpions and life-history strategies: from evolutionary dynamics toward the scorpionism problem

“…Beginning in the mid-1950s, several accounts of various aspects of the reproductive biology, in some cases of the entire post-embryonic development of scorpions, have been published. These were mainly by biologists such as Alexander [16, 37, 38], Auber [39, 40], Matthiesen [25, 26], Maury [41, 42], Shulov and Amitai [43], Shulov et al [44], Varela [45] and Williams [46]. More recently other biological cycles of scorpions were studied [11, 47–53].…”