E murinus, are they sexually dimorphic

[Alexander Abrams]

Hi
I was hoing that someone could help, after a long search I have found an E murinus, the Skeleton tarantula. I asked the supplier for a female and was sold the below. Having looked a few photo's in books and online, can anyone sex my new spider from the photo below.

Thanks
Alex.

[Zoltan Mihaly Lestyan]

I would say, that looks like a female to me, one that haven't molted for some time. What size is it by the way?

Ps.: do you have a ventral picture of it?

[Alexander Abrams]

Hi Zoltan

It's a least three inches, could be 4. It's discovered the flower pot so is now sitting under it, meaning that I won't be able to get other photo's from different angles. I thought that it might not have molted for some, I'm peretty sure it's in reasonable health, and the guy in the pet shop did say that it was captive bred.
The photos in books seem to show females that have the same colouration as mine, with the males being a ligher brown and with lesser marked leg stripes.

Thanks
Alex.

[Chris Sainsbury]

Hi

E murinus, are they sexually dimorphic

When they are juvenile....no not really
When they are mature....yes quite different from each other. Or at least the males take on a very fuzzy appearence.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/the.tarantula.store/E.murinus.htm

cheers
Chris

[Alexander Abrams]

Thanks Chris. So I'm guessing it's female then. The photo's are pretty clear but as I'm really no expert so I'm pretty loath to jump and say that it's one sex ir the other.

I love those phot's, thanks for the link.

Alex.

[Alexander Abrams]

I've managed to get a few photo's of the 'underside' so maybe it can be sexed from this. It was very hard to get a decent shot of it through the perspex tank, this was about the best that I could do, I've had a go with Photoshop but I'm still not sure that it's up to scratch.


Thanks
Alex.