unknown spider

[Meta menardi]

Originally Posted by wilippa

Is the "boxing gloves" on the palps a universal means of telling gender or does it not always hold true? I often wonder how people in this forum are able to say from a picture whether the specimen is male or female.

It is pretty well universal for spiders, the male takes sperm from a web it makes especially for the purpose into it's palps, mating involves some quite strange contortions as the male tries to get "lockon" to the females epigyne (external manifestation of the reproductive parts).
Some of the more primitive spiders have a very simple palp, some of the crazy ones have palps like carrying a very elaborate selection of kitchen implements in the hope that this will fir the female of choice. If you want to get more information on spiders, they have many fascinating stories that go with them. Also, there is so much scope to make an impact on the current state of knowledge.

[emmi-loulou]

thanks for all the information. my partner and I are really fascinated and finding it all informative

[No.9 Spider]

The 'boxing gloves' are only fully formed in mature males, when they can be used as a means to determine a species accurately. They can sometimes also be 'apparent' in some species of immature males prior to the final maturing moult.
An immature male would look, from general observation, no different to an immature or mature female.
The male palp and female epigyne are a basically a natural 'lock and key'. which stops cross breeding of species and can be very complex. The theraphosidae (tarantulas) have more simple palps/epigynes which does allow cross breeding of some species.

[wilippa]

Fascinating! Thanks for the info guys. :P