Blepharopis Mendica Sexing??

[izbiggs]

I have some B. Mendica and I have no idea how to sex them. Their abdomens are so spiky! Anybody have tips? I can post photos 

 

[Kermit]

Look at the antennas... males have much thicker antenna

Good luck... Great species!

 

[Kermit]

Post pics

 

[mantisman 230]

While pictures can be useful, feeding them to the max can also help reveal segments if necessary.

 

[Ranitomeya]

If you look on the underside, the last sternite protrusion--the lobe coming off the middle on the underside towards the end of the abdomen--is much smaller than the previous one on the male. The female's last sternite protrusion is about as large as the one preceding it. The male has one more of those protrusions since it has more sternites than the female. It is the same as sexing Gongylus and Pseudocreobotra.

 

[izbiggs]

@Kermit I'll try posting pics! They're still very little, I don't know if the antenna can be used 

 

[Kermit]

Let's take a look ?

 

[izbiggs]

 

[izbiggs]

 @Kermit Here they are! I took the best photos I could. If i can take better angles though, let me know

 

[izbiggs]

 @Ranitomeya I posted some photos if you wanted to take a look... Looks like the first is male and the second is female? Just a guess

 

[Kermit]

I know it's tough on a mobile phone camera. Try getting super close and try to get a head shot.

The second pic looks like male antenna.

At that size you can definitely tell by the antennas if you have a male and female to compare between.

The male antenna are just black compared to female much more faint and thin, not black.

 

[Ranitomeya]

The pictures are neither zoomed in enough or clear enough to count segments. It's also difficult to count segments if they are hungry like that and their abdomens are shrunken.

A view of the abdomen from the side, zoomed in and focused on the last few segments would be best for counting the lobes. It's also difficult to count the lobes if they're not well-fed and the lobes are against one another with no space in between.

It looks like you have three males from the side-views, but I can't be certain. I can't get a count of the segments in the other images because again, their abdomens are too thin and the ends of the abdomens are obscured by the way they're curled towards the body.



If you look towards the end of the abdomen, you can see a tiny lobe/protrusion after the last large one on this male--each protrusion comes off the end of a segment, so the females lack the smaller one towards the end that the males have. A more obvious indicator of sex on this subadult is the thick antennae that only males have.

 

[Kermit]

The picture above from Ranito is clearly that of a male. You can see the antennae are very thick! I agree the abdomen identification is a good way to differentiate male from female. But difficult to capture on the camera. See if you can take some close-ups of the headshot as I suggested and we can clearly tell by the antenna if they are males or females. Good luck

 

[hibiscusmile]

yea, males have thick eyebrows tee hee!

 

[Kermit]

Love the antennas as the males grow older too! ?