Difficulties sexing nymphs even when they're large?

[aoikirin]

I've never had this problem before!  I need to sex my Simandoa nymphs to separate them to prevent further matings, but every single nymph I check seems male based on the ventral segments.  I'm not sure of the exact instar they are but most of them have to be four or five if not even six! They can't all be male can they? I know some species like Therea petiveriana tend to have  higher ratio of males.  

 

Any ideas? 

[Hisserdude]

On 8/12/2019 at 12:02 PM, aoikirin said:

I've never had this problem before!  I need to sex my Simandoa nymphs to separate them to prevent further matings, but every single nymph I check seems male based on the ventral segments.  I'm not sure of the exact instar they are but most of them have to be four or five if not even six! They can't all be male can they? I know some species like Therea petiveriana tend to have  higher ratio of males.  

Any ideas? 

One of my friends also received a unisex group of Simandoa nymphs recently, (all males), so apparently this species does have a skewed sex ratio... You may actually have all males. 😕

[Shinylarvitar97]

Yeah i can agree with Hisserdude. My colony is VERY male heavy. I have like 3x the amount of males. Just thought it was a coincidence. 

[aoikirin]

Oh thank goodness there's precedent.  I thought I was going bonkers! 

[Hisserdude]

Yeah, so you'll definitely want vendors to sex yours in the future, or just buy a lot of them... Kinda sucks, especially since the price of this species is rather expensive.