How is the gender of a tarantula determined?

Over my 30 years of keeping tarantulas alive in vivaria, I must admit to having been fooled many times both by the spiders themselves and by my well-meaning colleagues or so called "experts", who claimed to have discovered some foolproof method of accurately determining the gender of individual tarantulas. read more

If you have a decent microscope and know what you’re looking for the sex of a tarantula can be determined by examining their molt. Right about where the carapace meets the abdomen you can identify the difference in sex organs from the inside. When males reach sexual maturity they get their specialized sex organs and it is easy to tell. read more

Heads is female, tails is male. The author has heard everything (including a few you may have missed!) about how you can accurately determine the sex of a living tarantula. From "feeling" for the abdominal bulge (try THAT one with a King Baboon or Usambara Red!) to comparing the sizes of the chelicera, legs, abdominal girth or the you-name-it. read more

An observer may sex a tarantula -- that is, determine whether the tarantula is male or female -- by noting, in part, the spider's size, color scheme and molting patterns. Size Matters Females tend to be larger than males. read more