Are these actually Dictators?

[Galidgean]

Can anyone tell me if these are truly P.Dictator? I am not well-versed enough to know, and being allergic I can't risk trying to look under their claws to count the hairs in the sockets by the finger claw to differentiate them from an Emperor (sorry for my lack of proper terminology).

 

[Galapoheros]

Those are imperators imo. You're looking for a practical, easy way to tell and one of the more obvious and practical difference to take a look at is the morphology of the pectines underneath. The first image is dictator, the second is imperator. The granulation is too light to be dictator and there is lack of other apparent evidence from the images to ID them as dictator to me. But imperators are just as cool imo and sought after just as much as dictator today. btw sexual dimorphism concerning pectines with dictators in my personal experience is practically undetectable, I can't tell a diff so far and I have confirmed male vs. females via breeding, then I took a look underneath, ...I still can't see a diff. Do a pectine tooth count in the pic and compare it to what you have compared to imperator.

 

[Galidgean]

Thanks for the info. I agree imperators are just as cool, I have two currently. I just saw these at a local shop and if they were actually dictators I was thinking of picking up a couple as I don't have any of that species, but wasn't so interested if they're most likely imperator... since that's how I got the imperators I have now (sold as dictators). Haha. Unfortunately I can't handle them as I'm allergic, plus the shop isn't keen on me 'disturbing' them if I won't buy them... which is odd because I'm not going to buy something if I can't check it out first (at least not again) and I'd buy if they were in fact dictators and I could check. Thanks again, guess the wait continues.

 

[Galidgean]

One other item, in your photos, the dictator has a count of 12 on the pectines, imperator 15. Is that a fairly definitive way to tell the two apart?

 

[Galapoheros]

It's really hard for me to tell from those photos, just not a close enough dorsal view so I can't give a real strong opinion on those in the store there. In my pics, it's hard to perceive with pictures but in person you can see that the pectines on dictators are really small compared to imperator and generally darker. Not sure about the pectine count being a definite way to tell but definitely trend to look at I'd say.

 

[Daniel Edwards]

Hi Galidgeon! Galapoheros has been a tremendous help with helping me identify mine as well. Apparently the name DICTATOR got filtered in a lot recently and I really wish I could find the paper trail to where they all came from. I ordered mine through LLL Reptile. Where did you get yours? See if you can find our thread "Imperator vs Dictator" on here.