After reading this thread, I called my local Petco and sure enough they had a couple of them. I wanted a female, as I already have a male. It was hard to get a good look at the store, but looked like a female. I get home and looks more like a male. Thoughts?
That looks female to me, but I do better looking at two side by side for comparison.
Yeah, I called a couple of petcos first. One didn’t have any and the other had two. Price was $30.
The shop I just visited had 2. Definitely Pandinus. imperator.....
I would order from a private seller. Don’t give those awful corporations money for animals please
Im on east coast and they have them here.
The odds are that they are not dictators. P. dictator is extremely rare in the hobby but many dealers and stores sold imperator as dictator. So unfortunately, many out there think they have dictator but they don't. Dictator is much harder to find than imperator. Emails, Youtube, Pinterest, ...I know of only 2 others that have true dictator. I know others do but they keep a low internet profile. Dictator is very rare, research, don't be fooled. The trend is that just because somebody works at a pet store, it's assumed they know but it's best not to assume that.
How can you tell whether or not it's a dictator? The one I saw was a dark greenish blue color.
As far as I know P.dictator is smaller than P. Imperator 140mm as opposed to 200mm. P.dictator is blacker than very dark brown/blackish of imperator. Pectine tooth count is less on P. dictator. If it's being advertised as P. dictator then it more than likely is not. P.dictator comes from a very small area of the Cameroon and hence is very rare.
I think that they’re also regulated by CITES so exports would probably be very rare and illegal. I recently read an article about someone who got busted trying to export some to France.