This giant desert centipede, Scolopendra heros was discovered to be incubating eggs, layed sometime between 4:00 PM Saturday May 6 and 10:00 AM Tuesday May 9. The specimen was accessioned for SASI's teaching collection on March 22, a few days after it was dug up on a construction site near Tanque Verde Loop Road in east Tucson. SASI's Steve Prchal says "its the largest I have seen in 30 years of centipede watching. This is only the second time we have had viable eggs laid. At 10 days everything looks promising."

In 1987 SASI had a centipede lay eggs, also from a wild mating. It took approximately 3 weeks for the eggs to hatch and another 3 weeks for the neonates to molt. During this entire time, the mother was very attentive to them.

On May 31, the eggs flattened out somewhat and one could begin to see the form of the centipede within. The mother was very protective, staying curled around them. She had not eaten or had any water since the eggs were laid.

The eggs hatched June 12. The young centipedes were only about an eigth of an inch long. At first the babies remained motionless, but the next day they had almost doubled their length and were wiggling around in the protective curl of their mother.

These pictures were taken during the first week.

On July 8, 2000, the mother was removed from the habitat. A few days later the young were set up in 34 separate containers. They were each fed a baby cricket every other day and were doing very well. Two died shortly after being set up in their individual containers; cause unknown. Unfortunately, the air conditioning unit in the lab broke during the hottest part of the summer and we had a high mortality due to the heat. In the wild these creatures would have been underground where it is considerably cooler just a few inches below the surface.

In the lab they were not able to escape as the inside temperature reached almost 100 degrees in the afternoon for several days in a row. Even though the A/C unit was replaced within a week, the effects of over-heating continued to plague the babies. Losses were minimal during the "hot spell", but the heat seems to have had a negative effect, causing difficulties in the centipedes moving into the next instar. As of October 26, 2000 only four remained alive. One was "stuck" at the same size as it was in July and did not make it. The remaining three molted twice after their ordeal but unfortunately did not make it through the 2001 spring molt. It was a rare experience to have these babies even though we did not get to see them grow up.