Male vs. Female quantities

kamakiri · Jan 19, 2009

Looks like I have way more males.

........Male.....Female

L4......12.........5

L3.......5*........1

Total...17........6

*Not 100% positive on the L3 male count, but the one L3 that looks female makes me think the others must be male but they just may not be as close to molting. I'll add some pictures later to show what I mean.

Anyway...I'm a little surprised at the imbalance in numbers so far.

kamakiri · Jan 19, 2009

L3 Female:

Even though the 7th and 8th segments are still showing, gonopophyses (sp?) are visible. The 6th segment shows notching and folding.

L3 Male:

L4 Female:

L4 Male:

Pretty sure I have the L3s correctly sexed as two molted today and are still males as previously noted.

Rick · Jan 20, 2009

First one looks like a male to me. Kinda hard to tell in those pics.

kamakiri · Jan 20, 2009

Rick said:
First one looks like a male to me. Kinda hard to tell in those pics.

Er...That's the whole point of the pictures...to show the difference.

Also wanted to show how the last two segments typically get 'pulled in' above or behind the 6th at some point for females. With S. limbata, it appears to happen mostly between L3 and L4.

Many people *claim* to be able to sex mantises at L1 or L2...I'd like to see how!

kamakiri · Jan 20, 2009

Definitely female parts...not sure if this crop/text will help:

Katnapper · Jan 20, 2009

kamakiri said:
Definitely female parts...not sure if this crop/text will help:

It helped me!

Grant, I hope you don't mind.... but I saved this pic to my computer for my reference! Thanks for labeling and posting it!!

I never could tell where the "notch" was supposed to be. And Googling "gonopophyses" didn't help me much.

kamakiri · Jan 20, 2009

Katnapper said:
It helped me! Grant, I hope you don't mind.... but I saved this pic to my computer for my reference! Thanks for labeling and posting it!! I never could tell where the "notch" was supposed to be. And Googling "gonopophyses" didn't help me much.

You are more than welcome to copy for and under 'fair use'...same thing for any pics I post publicly in the future. Just don't make any money off of it and you're okay

Just know that terms like 'notch' are not technical and that I may have parts mis-spelled or mis-labelled! Especially 'gonopophyses'...just working from memory, but I do think that's what they're called....okay that was mis-spelled...looks like it's 'gonapophyses' or valvulae.

Katnapper · Jan 20, 2009

kamakiri said:
You are more than welcome to copy for and under 'fair use'...same thing for any pics I post publicly in the future. Just don't make any money off of it and you're okay Just know that terms like 'notch' are not technical and that I may have parts mis-spelled or mis-labelled! Especially 'gonopophyses'...just working from memory, but I do think that's what they're called....okay that was mis-spelled...looks like it's 'gonapophyses' or valvulae.

All terms understood, and thank you.

I just wanted to keep a copy on my computer to look at myself, just for my own reference... not use elsewhere for any other reason. It's hard to find diagrams of mantis parts it seems. Hopefully not for long though (for me). I just bought several books that I'm really excited to read. One of them should be very detailed and inclusive. It's the one, of course, that is taking forever to get here! <_<

PhilinYuma · Jan 21, 2009

kamakiri said:
You are more than welcome to copy for and under 'fair use'...same thing for any pics I post publicly in the future. Just don't make any money off of it and you're okay Just know that terms like 'notch' are not technical and that I may have parts mis-spelled or mis-labelled! Especially 'gonopophyses'...just working from memory, but I do think that's what they're called....okay that was mis-spelled...looks like it's 'gonapophyses' or valvulae.

Well, this certainly isn't an "expert opinion" (are you there, Christian?) but I learned, long ago, that the gonapophyses are the female naughty parts and the gonopophyses the male naughty parts, containing the genital pore. Over the years though, I seem to have seen both terms applied to both sexes. Very confusing!

Christian · Jan 21, 2009

Gonapophyses is the term applied to the appendages of the genital region in both sexes. The female gonapophyses are better known as valves, the male ones as phallomeres. Females have three pairs of valves, males three phallomeres (one pair and an unpaired one - as copulatory organs are asymmetrical in Dictyopterans, of the initial 4 (two pairs) only 3 phallomeres are left in males.)

Orin · Jan 21, 2009

kamakiri said:
Many people *claim* to be able to sex mantises at L1 or L2...I'd like to see how!

Some species can be sexed at earlier instars, others later, according to the segments (sexing also varies in the same way for different genera of roaches, some can be sexed at L1, others more like L5).

You can sex ghosts easily at L2 by the shape of the head and prothorax rather than the segments.

But, yeagh most people offering to sex L2, or especially L1 are not telling the truth.

kamakiri · Apr 12, 2009

One more technical correction to make above: The sternite/tergite counts above are off by 1. What we commonly call the 6th segment for females is actually the 7th sternite that becomes the subgenital plate or ovipositor. The first sternite is just barely visible and I forget that it is there.

Wanted to share this so people can visualize what these parts look like on an adult female and what everything above turns into.

Click for larger picture

Top view:

Click for larger picture

Back to the original topic, it seems interesting that some of the other S. limbata keepers also had wide large differences in their male/female quantities. Arkanis also has significantly more males, but that is no surprise since they are from the same ooth as mine, but yeatzee and Rebecca have mostly girls.

hibiscusmile · Apr 13, 2009

yea, I am not sure, but I believe I got one boy. I wonder if this is from inbreeding (my first ooth), but could of come from long line of same family... or if it is a survival thing?

I was going to ask Christian, how to pronunce Gonapophyses, but after I read his post...I soon realized he would have to pronunce most of what he wrote :lol: .

yeatzee · Apr 13, 2009

Yeah my ratios are all out of wack. I have 2 males - one thats an L5, and the other an L3 with the rest being females :-/

kamakiri · Apr 16, 2009

My only brown male from the two batches:

Katnapper · Apr 16, 2009

kamakiri said:
My only brown male from the two batches:

I love that speckled abdomen! ^_^

yeatzee · Apr 16, 2009

Do you have any L3-5 male nymphs? If so we may need to do some breed loans when they turn adult if that is ok with you.

kamakiri · Apr 16, 2009

yeatzee said:
Do you have any L3-5 male nymphs? If so we may need to do some breed loans when they turn adult if that is ok with you.

I only have two that are L5 or L6. This is one of them. I'm doing my best to keep the 4 remaining 'normal' males from my first batch healthy and alive. So I should still have somebody to share when you have a female adult that's ready to mate.

Katnapper said:
I love that speckled abdomen! ^_^

Me too...that's the main reason I posted that shot!

hibiscusmile · Apr 16, 2009

:lol: and I love the speckled butt!

Male vs. Female quantities

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