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Ventral Gender Identification Attempt.

Zaiaku

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3 Year Member
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93
Alright, Well I looked through quite a few threads and have seen many molt pictures and others of the underside of the T's. Say my little N. Chromatus is on the glass, what would I be looking for on the underside? I assume the general area to look is where you'd look on a molt yes? but what would I see male vs Female? and how old/big do they usually have to be for this method to work?


Edit/update: ok well she decided she'd be photogenic and give me a peek. I hope the pictures are clear enough. After reading the article MassExodus linked me I don't see any of the epiandrous fussilae, but then again this would literally be my first attempt at this and the T may be too young? Not sure. Please let me know what you guys think.

Edit/update #2 lol sorry about all the updates and such to this post. Guess I'm just excited to be actually diving into this. So after reading a few more articles about ventral gender identification, and a few youtube video (notably this one by jon3800
) I think my little N. Chromatus is Female. I would LOVE others view on this AND I definitely still plan to be opening up molt to check that out as well and will definitely post those up for scrutiny and conformation as well.

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Zaiaku

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3 Year Member
Messages
93
so if i get a good look under my N. Chromatus i'm looking for the presence or lack there of little arch hair like spinnerets?
 

MassExodus

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5,547
Location
Outside San Antonio, TX
It basically looks like an upside down u or v. In sub adults and adult males over 3-4 inches or so, it becomes prominent. On smaller spiders, your ventral guess is as good as mine :)
ps. I'm horrible at vent sexing, there are much better people here to ask. Check out sexing threads on this forum. Get a clean, fresh molt, get a close up of the two pairs of booklungs, on the inside of the abdomen, focusing on the top pair, and if the spider is over three inches I can most likely tell you what gender it is. As I said though, there are people on this forum who seem to vent sex pretty accurately, so if you're impatient, post a close up, focused shot of the underside of the T, and someone can probably help you.
 

Zaiaku

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
93
I will absolutely try to get a good shot. but she (it's a she til i know for sure :p) is rather shy. likes to scoot down into her lair anytime someone even walks into the room. active little bugger when she thinks no one is looking though! if i can catch a shot underneath with good lighting and focus i'll post it here and see what others think. thank you again that article was very informative. I personally would love to be able to sex a T both with vent and Molts. Here's to more research! lol Thanks again!
 

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