Is this a sluggish P.Transvaalicus? (Lots of photos)

Last month I received a male P.transvaalicus from someone who didn't want to keep it because it was too aggressive. He also got it off a guy who abandoned it for the same reasons. I intend to stop this chain of abandonment and take care of it till the end!

The question is, why is he so slow? Or is this normal of P.barabuthuses? I've seen numerous videos of lightning fast specimens, zipping after their prey like some sort of african predator. Under my care he has eaten a large adult cricket, and a medium dubia roach a few weeks after that. Both were ignored when I threw them in at first, but were caught when I was not watching.




His movements are pretty slow and unaggressive. He comes out at 10pm and starts wandering around, trying to climb the walls or digging out some burrows. He makes some half-hearted swipes at the crickets I place in there if he meets them head-on. Or he avoids them completely. His previous-previous owner told me he couldn't catch crickets on his own, the jumping legs needed to be removed beforehand.

His temps are 
87ºF - 89ºF during the day

82ºF - 84ºF during the night
I live in a tropical country, so the temps are naturally high here. I have to turn on the air conditioning to reach that temp at night.

His name is Orion, which is ironically, the name of the guy who got killed by a giant scorpion.










I love this little guy. (Big guy? He is about 5 inches from claw to tail with the tail laid straight.)

Hello.

By sluggish, do you mean that it moves, ie walks slowly? or that it doesnt attack food as aggressively as you may see on YouTube feeding videos?

If it's happy and full, it wont be running marathons. It will just spend its time hiding, and strolling around his place at night. If it seems as if he isnt too interested in his food when you offer it to him, as you described he isnt very aggressive, it may be still full from its last meal. These desert types can go hungry for very long, so one feeder per two weeks is pretty much okay.

Usually feeding videos you would see online is set up so that the scorpions are hungry. Hence the aggressiveness to its food.
The few times i've missed giving a meal to my P. transvaalicus she went mad for the next meal, you can see it just stinging multiple times at lightning speed.

Dont have to worry about anything, your temps are fine.
Btw beautiful photos you caught!

Do you perhaps know the age of the scorpion? Parabuthus species tend to only live for 4-5 years on average so maybe it's an old individual?

lazydonut wrote:Hello.

By sluggish, do you mean that it moves, ie walks slowly? or that it doesnt attack food as aggressively as you may see on YouTube feeding videos?

 I mean both! He just strolls around his enclosure everynight, quite the active scorpion, climbing and walking everywhere. I've never seen him attack anything YET....just swings his pincers nonchalantly at his prey, or will pinch a superworm thats writhing in front of him, but wont pick it up to eat.


I have no idea of his age! but I doubt he could be very old since he was raised together from a scorpling with a female, and that female isn't full size yet.... But again, I'm not sure.

Also, this behaviour of walking around and endlessly trying to climb the walls of enclosure, does it mean he is unsatisfied with his enclosure? Or is he searching for a mate?

Yes, he is just doing what males do and walking around is very normal behaviour.

Thanks, I feel much more assured now. I was worried it was stressed out.