# How big should b.smithi male be?



## masqurin (Apr 17, 2010)

Hi there. 

My B.smithi has molted recently and from judging its molt, its a male. As my collection is pretty small atm, Im not in possession of a female and Im thinking about selling/swaping this little guy. Most people on this forum want a male that's already mature and here is my question. How big should a mature male be? This guy is slightly above 4" leg spawn and Im not sure how long is left before it matures. Id prefer to know when to expect him to mature because I dont want to leave everything for the last minute.

















And heres the molt


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## TEENY (Jan 4, 2008)

My male was HUGE it just kinda doubled in size at last moult, but they all range in size. You will see when it is mature the 'boxing gloves' and hooks are very obvious in smithis


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## 8and6 (Jan 19, 2010)

try and get just the red box in the frame in nice crisp focus and fill the frame

i think i can see the beginnings of a uterus externus which would say female, but its hard to be certain from that photo


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## masqurin (Apr 17, 2010)

Hmm...
On the different forum 8 out of 8 people agreed it was a male =/
And these pictures were taken with a phone camera
Will try to get better ones as soon as I get my hands on a better camera


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## mcluskyisms (Jan 24, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> i think i can see the beginnings of a uterus externus which would say female, but its hard to be certain from that photo


Id say certain male on this one Steve, this is my females moult when she was around 4".


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## 8and6 (Jan 19, 2010)

these are the joys accompanying kodak gender assignment

but i still withhold judgement till a better pic of this region is forthcoming










it doesnt look like male accessory organs to me


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## masqurin (Apr 17, 2010)

Right, assuming its a male, is there any way of estimating when it will become mature before it will actually develop hooks?


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## 8and6 (Jan 19, 2010)

none at all


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## TEENY (Jan 4, 2008)

masqurin said:


> Right, assuming its a male, is there any way of estimating when it will become mature before it will actually develop hooks?


Nope, however you can slow the process a little by feeding less if you were wanting to keep him longer


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## masqurin (Apr 17, 2010)

I want to know for sure whatever its a male or not as quickly as possible. If its a male, then I want to quickly sell/lend it to someone before it dies and if its a female then Im keeping it. Hence my question if there is any way of telling how long is left before the spider matures. How big was your male when it matured?


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## Spider jake (Nov 6, 2011)

masqurin said:


> I want to know for sure whatever its a male or not as quickly as possible. If its a male, then I want to quickly sell/lend it to someone before it dies and if its a female then Im keeping it. Hence my question if there is any way of telling how long is left before the spider matures. How big was your male when it matured?


Like steve said get a close up picture of the area that he has put in a square and then we can tell you for sure !


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## mcluskyisms (Jan 24, 2010)

Or better still, have a little read of this thread here and I'm pretty sure you will be able to determine the sex for yourself. 

*Sexing A Tarantula*


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