Growth Rates

[Robert Lawrie]

Hi Folks,

I have kept a Grammostola sold to me as a `Concepcion` for about 9 months. It was sold as an unsexed sub adult which the dealer ( under excited pressure from me ) guessed to be about 18 months old. The dealers are very experienced and reliable but I wonder if the T. `should` have moulted by now ? My dealer felt instictively that the T was a female and I am not really worried either way but I wonder does the fact it hasn`t moulted point to it being more likely or less likely to be female? It is very healthy looking and moves about the tank freely but has not eaten for about 3 months now! I know that this is not unusual at all in this species so I am not bothered about this at this stage either. So my question is this : should I expect it to moult soon and does it`s lack of moulting indicate it`s sex at all ?

Thanks for your patience.

[Colin D Wilson]

First of all welcome to the forum Robert,

Grammies are notorious for doing everything slow so as you say there's no real need to worry.

the facts are... more than a year in between moults is not uncommon, not feeding for three (four, five) months before a moult is pretty much run of the mill for some individuals, i've not really round length of time between moults an indication of gender (temp, humidity, food availability etc play a huge part in moulting periods)
As far as sexing, then examining an exuvium is really the most accurate way (with experience you can have a 90% rough guesstimate on sex but as allways that last 10% catches the best out sometimes)

[Robert Lawrie]

Thanks very much for the response and although it`s much as I thought it`s nice to hear it confirmed by someone with much more experience so thanks again.

Rob