I'm A Happy Spider Guy

I've been looking for three years for this, and now I have it! I'm super blown away I got one and it took this long



Mature Male Ornithoctonus auriotibialis

That looks awesome. Where did you get it? I am asumeing it might be rare?!Is it aggresive? Looks so. COOL dude.

Not super rare, but rare enough. I've gotten two females, but I just have never found a male before until last week. I found it listed for sale on an arachnid forum and jumped on the deal. As far as attitude, he came out real easy, but this species is very quick to bite, so I'm betting he'd love to get his fangs in me
I've decided that since he has a few girlfriends he shall be named Charlie Sheen

Winning! lol

A question you're probably asked often, but one that I don't know the answer to: How do you tell a male spider from a female? Do the gender indications vary with the species?
(LOL at the name "Charlie Sheen!")

This individual species, and many out there have dimorphic color patterns, basically when they mature the males look different than the females

Consider the male here


with the female here


There are also ways of checking the molts to tell if they are male or female. The biggest indicator here is you are looking for a flap on the inside of the molt, which is the female's spermathicae. If it has this flap, its female, if not, its male. The spermathicae is much like a kangaroo's pouch, which is where the male puts the sperm.
Many males will have hooks under the front two legs, some don't. A very few have hooks under the front four legs. Most asian burrowers have spurs that are more like bumps than hooks and are on the inside of the legs, again compare the front legs in the two photos.
Mature male tarantulas do not have sex in the standard method. They make their sperm inside their back sides and drop it on a sperm web, which is a special tent like set up. They then load it into special secondary sexual organs on the pedipalps, the front feelers that are small versions of legs in front of their face. Once the sperm is in these organs, they use the hooks to lift up the female and then reach out and put the sperm in the female's spermathicae. Much later, the female drops the eggs and sperm and wraps the whole mess up in a ball wrapped up in a web sack, and if all goes well, babies come out!
Basically these secondary organs make the pedipalps look like they have boxing gloves on the end, so we give this term hooks and gloves, or sometimes hooks and clubs, and that is the best way to tell a mature male from a mature female

Wow, how fascinating! Thanks for taking the time to explain everything so thoroughly!

So do I understand correctly that in tarantulas, even though the male has deposited his sperm in the female's spermathicae, the actual fertilization process takes place in the web sack after she has dropped the eggs?

That's a subject that I am not 100% sure on, but from what all I have read, I believe that most do it that way, some can fertilize the eggs while inside the mother, and one species I know of for a fact has no spermathicae at all so the fertilization all happens inside the mother with that species as well.

Encycratella olivacea


This African arboreal species (this one is rehoused in a much bigger home now) is the species with no spermathicae, which makes it an interesting species to keep, and with my knowledge, or lack there of, one that is very hard to tell if I have a male or female until it reaches a bigger size. More frustrating days ahead