New Tailless Whipscorpions, some difficulty sexing

[Brambane]

Hello! I am a long-time lurker who visits to look a people's pictures of spiders and scorpions. I've kept hissers and other roaches and I'm starting to venture into keeping arachnids. I made an account to share my new Damon whipscorpions and because I am having some sexing trouble with one of them. I got three adults. #3 is male and I am pretty confident #1 is male as well. I am not sure if #2 is male or female, I hope its a female but if anyone has a guess I would appreciate it.

I am excited to enter the hobby and the forums!

Spoiler: 1

Spoiler: 2

Spoiler: 3

 

[schmiggle]

These look to me like a less common Damon species, like D. tibialis, so congrats on finding them in the US!

I've heard a rule (that is not universal--I know it doesn't apply to Heterophrynus batesii) that if the pedipalp extends beyond the first leg segment, then the whipspider is a male. That would make the second whipspider male.

 

[JohnDapiaoen]

These look to me like a less common Damon species, like D. tibialis, so congrats on finding them in the US!

I've heard a rule (that is not universal--I know it doesn't apply to Heterophrynus batesii) that if the pedipalp extends beyond the first leg segment, then the whipspider is a male. That would make the second whipspider male.

That rule applies to Damon diadema but not this sp. Whatever this sp. is being imported here in the US in large numbers, it's assumed to be Damon medius but no one is for sure certain that's the correct label. I have a hunch that the ventral sexing guides for D. diadema should work for this sp as well.CLICK HERE. if all else fails you know #3 is definitely male if the others look different ventrally then odds are you've got females as well. Good luck!

-JohnD.

 

[Brambane]

Thanks for the replies! Does it have to be on a molt to identify the sex ventrally? I tried checking them and it looked not nearly as clear cut as those pictures. I will try to put them in a clear dish and get pictures later if I can.

 

[JohnDapiaoen]

Ventral means just looking at the underside of the animal. I'm not even sure what structures you'd look for with an amblypygid molt would be nice to get someone to look into that lol.

-JohnD.

 

[Brambane]

I checked them all ventrally and they all look pretty much the same, meaning they are either all male or all female. They all have thin and long pedipalps (especially #3) but their ventral side seems more like the female on the right than the male on the left in this picture. I don't think they are D. diadema or D. variegatus so I have no clue what to do with the pedipalp length.
Either way, it doesn't look like my plans for breeding them will be taking off lol

 

[Banshee05]

looks pretty much like Damon medius, but nearly all west african Damon species looks the same, and even some Phrynichus species on the first sight.
Forget all the things with pedipal length etc. this is in Phrynichidae obsulet, because all of them (to my knowledge and what I am breeding), have red hairs in the region of the genital operculum in FEMALES... you can see this in every stage; but sexing via the dimorphism is just possible in large adult specimen and not in small ones, even in species with a minor pronounced dimorphism.