While I had Diablo out of the vivarium the other day to rehouse, I snapped this photo in the hopes of sexing her:Scorpions have two comblike structures called pectines which you can see in the photo above, or highlighted in this diagram below:Both sexes have these pectines, which they use as an additional sensory organ - each tooth of the comb is covered in chemoreceptors which have developed to detect scent trails, pheromones, or other chemical signals. Both sexes use them to track down prey or to find their way home to their burrow, for example. However, the male also uses his pectines to tract down receptive females for breeding. As a result, the males pectines are larger than the females. Looking at the comparison image below, it can be seen that not only are the teeth of the comb longer in the male, but that the tips of the combs themselves reach beyond the first joint in the rear leg. The female pectines only reach as far as the joint, no further.I'll agree, there's not a lot in it - it seems like it could be easy to make mistakes. There are other ways to determine the sex of your scorpion - one of which involves examining the granulation on the carapace, another involves the shape of the genital operculum - but examining the pectines appears to be the easiest.
When I look again at Diablos photo above, it seems like she has quite long teeth to her pectines, but the pectines also do not extend beyond that first leg joint, so until such a time as they do I shall be referring to Diablo as a "she".
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