# Damon variegatus



## Petross (Oct 13, 2011)

I just want to ask if someone can say is that two damons are pair, because that one on right have in same size bigger and longer catch arms.


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## BQC123 (Oct 13, 2011)

How old are these? If they are adult, I see two females. They do look young to me though. I don't know at what age they start to show sexual diamorphism. If they are younger, there is a possibility the one on the right is a male. You'll have to wait and see.
Are they D. variegatus for sure, and not D. diadema? I'm just asking because in the US many being sold as D. variegatus are actually D. diadema.


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## Petross (Oct 13, 2011)

They are now in 5.instar, they are D.variegatus for sure they are from female from import Tanzania.


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## BQC123 (Oct 13, 2011)

According to this article:
http://www.panarthropoda.de/sub/haltung/geisselspinnen/familien/damondiademaen.php
Sexual diamorphism can be made out starting at 4i. With that in mind, it is possible you are looking at a pair. It is possible that one has the pedipalps growing a little faster, but being the same age I don't think that is likely.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Petross (Oct 13, 2011)

Thanks for help :-D, I will wait and see.


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## Michiel (Oct 15, 2011)

Petross said:


> They are now in 5.instar, they are D.variegatus for sure they are from female from import Tanzania.



Hi Petross,


1. The fact that they come from Tanzania does not automatically mean they are D.variegatus, since both species occur in that country;
2. There are no instars in whip spiders, officially there is a name for every stage: protonymph, deutonymph, etc etc..... 
3. Sexing of females of genus Damon (and others from the family Phrynichidae) is easy. You could even use a exuvia (shed skin). Look at the genital operculum, females have a row of reddish fringed hairs on the GO, males do not have these. 
Sorry, I cannot tell from the pictures, to me they look like a small and a large female, but I could be wrong, maybe Banshee comes along, and he will be able to tell you more I think...

Regards,

Michiel


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## Michiel (Oct 16, 2011)

I made a picture of a female (Damon annulatipes) exuvia for you last night, so you can see what I mean. The arrows indicate the row of hairs I was talking about


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## Banshee05 (Oct 17, 2011)

Hi,
it is not possible to sex them now, they are much to small, wait 2 further molts, then, IF they are belong to two sexes, you will see it: length of the pedipalps (femur/tibia).

Michiel: it is not neccasary to make such a pix of the GO, cause, if they species have red hairs, you will see everywhere around that area, and not just directly above the GO- nevertheless good to explain and show the others.


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## Michiel (Oct 17, 2011)

Thanks for explaining that, Michael!


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## lorelei (Nov 3, 2011)

There's also something else that perfectly shows the differences between male and female of Damon variegatus - generally the ventral. And it's visible few stages before becoming adult, I sexed my animals when they had about 1,5 cm of body length and it really works.
That picture was shown there in the past, unfortunately I don't know who was the author, but it must have been the user of that forum 







Male on the left, female on the right. There's nothing to say, I think all is clear.


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 3, 2011)

Petross said:


> They are now in 5.instar, they are D.variegatus for sure they are from female from import Tanzania.


 According to Weygoldt's book D. variegatus is not found in Tanzania. You have D. diadema and it looks like two females.


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## Banshee05 (Nov 4, 2011)

D.variegatus didn'T show that sexual dimorphismus and didn'T grow so big... this are diadema, as usual....


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 4, 2011)

Michiel said:


> Hi Petross,
> 
> 
> 
> 2. There are no instars in whip spiders, officially there is a name for every stage: protonymph, deutonymph, etc etc.....


That terminology is used for pseudoscorpion development which is quite a bit different, and a more precise secondary term doesn't automatically negate a widely used term such as instar.


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## Michiel (Nov 4, 2011)

this terminology is also used in many publications of Weygoldt about whip spiders....These terms are used for both groups? I was once corrected for using the term instar when debating amblypygi, so that's why I reproduce that, I did not realize that it does not automatically negate the word instar, because I thought there are only right and wrong terms??? 

So please enlighten me, if my assumptions are wrong....


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 4, 2011)

Michiel said:


> ... because I thought there are only right and wrong terms???


 So you are certain there can only be one right term for the color red? Something crimson, rouge or burgundy can't be red? Deutonymph and tritonymph are Pseudoscorpion stages because members of that order molt only a few times and as far as is known they're all restricted to the same number. Amblypygi have many more molts which vary in number by species and there wouldn't even be names for them all. You have a publication from Weygoldt with Octonymph and and duodecimnymph? Pretty silly were it true.


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## Michiel (Nov 4, 2011)

You have point there....The comparison with different shades of red, however,is too shallow and obvious and what I read between the lines is a bit of a morally superior tone. 

Sent from my GT-I9001


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 4, 2011)

Michiel said:


> ...I read between the lines is a bit of a morally superior tone.


 You read between the lines what you feel in your own heart, not what's written. You're skirting the fact it's pseudoscorpion terminology. According to Weygoldt what's the name for a fifth instar amblypygid?


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## Michiel (Nov 5, 2011)

I think an "instar" 5 would just be called juvenile....like you said octonymph and so on would be kind of dubious.....I should look it up again
Btw, I asked you to enlighten me, not to ask me questions.
Sent from my GT-I9001


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## Michiel (Nov 5, 2011)

Btw, the read between the lines thing. I am a trained professional, it is part intuition combined with the language and choice of your words that made me "feel" that you had a certain tone....
But, it is not very important anyway...I would just like to know the correct terminology....

Sent from my GT-I9001


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 5, 2011)

Your intuition was off, it was only an explanation. The red example was an analogy to instar. Instar has long been used for crustaceans, insects, and arachnids. Tritonymph is more precise for a specific stage of a pseudoscorpion than the corresponding instar (which might not correspond to 3rd instar due to the correctly termed second embryonic instar of pseudoscorpion ova that may throw it off one since early development in pseudoscorpions is oddly variable while the same stage is consistent but not visible for live amblypygids) just as a shade of red may be more precisely termed something or another it doesn't mean it's not red. Precision is not always helpful, if you gave ten people you know ten shades of red with corresponding names to match up the results would be poor unless you're an interior decorator or paint mixer with similarly aligned friends.

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Michiel said:


> I asked you to enlighten me, not to ask me questions.
> Sent from my GT-I9001


 The original poster said he had a 5th instar Damon and you said he couldn't call them that so the question follows what can he call them? Juvenile 5?(To be honest they don't appear to be the same instar due to the difference in prosoma size.) 
I could not identify crimson, rouge, or vermillion on a red color chart but I have kept the same line of D. diadema for twelve years.


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## Michiel (Nov 5, 2011)

Yes, it was an explanation. I was talking about the way you explained it, duh!  Anyway, I should just have grabbed the books, instead of debating about it, whilst not knowing exactly what I was talking about.....I checked Wyegoldts 2000 book, and he mentions praenymph for just born animals and protonymph for the first free living instar. and after the protonymph come the nypmhal instars.

1. Both species (D.diadema and D.variegatus) occur in Tanzania, like I already said. Check out:

PRENDINI, L., P.WEYGOLDT & WHEELER W.C. 2005. Systematics of the Damon 
	variegatus group of African whip spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi): Evidence from 
	behaviour, morphology and DNA. Organisms, Diversity & Evolution 5: 203-236

and

WEYGOLDT, P. 1999. Revision of the genus Damon C.L. Koch, 1850 (Chelicerata: 
Amblypygi: Phrynichidae). Sperm transfer, spermatophore morphology, and female genitalia of three species of whip spiders: Charinus seychellarum (Kraepelin, 1898), Damon medius (Herbst, 1797) and Phrynichus scaber (Gervais, 1844) 
	(Chelicerata: Amblypygi). Zoologica, Heft 150 E.Schweizbart’sche 
	Verlagsbuchandlung (Nägeleu. Obermiller) Stuttgart 1999

So, sorry OP, I corrected you without knowing it myself precisely, nothing else to do now for me than to say sorry and thanks for the debate E and A...


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## Elytra and Antenna (Nov 5, 2011)

Michiel said:


> .....I checked Wyegoldts 2000 book, 1. Both species (D.diadema and D.variegatus) occur in Tanzania, like I already said. Check out:
> PRENDINI, L., P.WEYGOLDT & WHEELER W.C. 2005.


 If this time you've checked your sources you have two sources from the same author that disagree but even if D. variegatus were found in some outlaying fringe of Tanzania the specimens depicted here aren't them and nobody thus far claiming their Tanzanian specimens were D. variegatus have shown anything but D. diadema.


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## Michiel (Nov 6, 2011)

The most recent publication, 2003, mentions both species from Tanzania. D.variegatus occurs in the extreme west of Tanzania,according to that paper. 

Almost all specimens in the hobby are D.diadema,yes. This could be the result of local collecting.

Sent from my GT-I9001


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