Spiderlings and the odds of male vs. female

[waynerowley]

Curious to know how others have found this. I have 12 tarantulas, most of which I bought as slings, but a couple as juveniles. Of the slings I would expect there to be a roughly 50/50 split between males and females once they are old enough to check.

Discounting my g. pulchra which I bought as a sexed female:

- My C. versicolor juvenile turned out female
- My P. "machalla' is female (the one case I was kind of hoping for a male...)
- And now my Y. diversipes has also turned out to be female.

That's 3/11 so far! I have no confirmed males - the others are either too small to sex with the naked eye or they shredded their moults.

I'm somewhat surprised to say the least!

Wayne

 

[Finikan]

Maybe This will help?

 

[vicareux]

I've also noticed a fair domination of females over males in my collection.

CONFIRMED FEMALES (13):
0.1 G.pulchra
0.1 C.versicolor
0.1 M.balfouri
0.3 A.geniculata
0.1 B.emilia
0.2 P.sazimai
0.1 C.darlingi
0.1 H.gigas
0.1 H.pulchripes (bought as a confirmed female)
0.1 P.murinus (bought as a confirmed female)

CONFIRMED MALES (4):
1.0 T.albo
1.0 P.murinus
1.0 B.emilia
1.0 C.cyaneopubescens

And i bought everything as unsexed except for the two written above. We may just be lucky, or maybe nature plays its hand a little and lets one male mate with more females

 

[spideyspinneret78]

Nobody knows the EXACT odds of ending up with either a male or female. There haven't been any reputable studies done on sex ratios of tarantulas, to my knowledge. I've heard anecdotal reports one way or the other depending on the species, but they're just that, anecdotal. Could very well just be coincidence. If you get good at ventral sexing, you can increase your odds of picking out a female juvenile if you have a chance to closely examine the spider, otherwise it's just luck of the draw.

 

[liquidfluidity]

Gotta say, I too have ended up with more girls than boys...