L. Variolus 5th instar sexing

[Quetzalcoatl Nyarlathotep]

Hello dear friends. I just thought I'd share a few brief findings. Firstly, This will not be as comprehensive as I'd like it to be, but I will do my best to recall what I have thus observed. It would appear, that the vast majority of my 5 males sexed so far all have a dark red coloration on the legs. Zultana, my largest male, has a really lovely black and opaque coloration in the legs. The Females have an overall darker coloration, and the pedipalps are closer together than the males. The legs of all my females are black or nearly black with red striations on the legs. Unfortunately, I only have three sexed females thus far, but perhaps I will provide pictures of the unsexed ones and maybe you folks can assist me in that regard. They still seem to be enjoying the pinecones, however the larger ones are expanding their webs around the spice jugs, fortunately staying away from the lids so far (knock on wood). I have been having great success feeding them disabled paper wasps and grasshoppers I have found in my yard. Sometimes I'll give them a bumblebee for a super-meal as they usually take a few days to finish eating the bumblebees, then they don't need or want to eat until a few days later or until after they molt. They are rather indiscriminate on food, eating pretty much anything you can get stuck in their web. I always look for a hunting sheet before I feed them now, as this seems to be when they are most responsive to food vibrations. I have trained a few to wrap prey while I hold it in place in their webs. I did this with their mother with great success, but she stopped making a hunting sheet once she realized that she was getting fed by an outer source. Never attacked once when I removed her egg sacs. My plans are to breed her children next spring.
*question, do you folks know if my males will overwinter with the females till next spring? when should I introduce the males to the females enclosures? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Quetzalcoatl Nyarlathotep]

So is anybody gonna help me?

 

[NYAN]

Males will have pedipalps pretty early. Usually 3rd-5th instar you can sex them. I would separate the males, but as long as they have their own webs, cannibalism isn’t too likely. The males will be mature before the females in most cases, and die faster than the females. You need to feed the males at a slower rate than the females in order to Time their maturity correctly. Males may also mate with females who are 1 molt away from maturity. You can pair the males and females once the females have adult coloration, are large and well fed and the males are slimming down and have large and black palps.