M. balfouri 3”
I’m going to say male, but I’m like only 70 ish percent confident. If that dark area between the book lungs isn’t just a trick of the light giving it an actual three dimensional shape to it, I’d say it was female. But it’s hard to see with a 2D image.
 
@EtienneN Do the males of this species have an obvious epiandrous fusillae? Because that will usually present itself as an obvious white patch on the inside of the exuvia, which this one doesn't show.
 
@VanessaS I honestly don’t know if the males have obvious epiandrous fusillae but if it’s a girl does that mean she’s just not mature because the spermatheca doesn’t look like the correct shape yet? I tried to look at both epiandrous fusillae and spermathecae shape by species from a website in Russia but the website wouldn’t load. It’s too bad, someone did some really wonderful scientific drawings of them.
 
@EtienneN the spermathicae look like mittens. IMO balfouri are hard to sex without magnification. It is possible at this size, but they still aren’t as obvious as one might expect IME.
 

Media information

Category
Spermathecae sexing (Molts)
Added by
Meghanspood
Date added
View count
438
Comment count
6
Rating
0.00 star(s) 0 ratings

Image metadata

Device
Apple iPhone SE
Aperture
ƒ/2.2
Focal length
4.2 mm
Exposure time
1/30
ISO
64
Flash
Off, did not fire
Filename
3AC1B36C-1613-46BA-A3FF-CCB414D7D897.jpeg
File size
1 MB
Date taken
Tue, 06 August 2019 8:38 PM
Dimensions
4032px x 3024px

Share this media

Top