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Post by africaone on May 13, 2011 6:33:46 GMT -8
How is it possible to distinct sexes in Paussidae ?
I have a long serie of a small species from Angola caught at light and I failed to find how to sex them !
Thierry
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Post by prillbug2 on May 13, 2011 17:44:57 GMT -8
Probably size between male and female. Shape of the last abdominal segment. Opening the abdomen and pulling the sexual organs may work as well. It doesn't matter if the abdoment is slit open. Just make the dissections and mount them on slides. Maybe, the antennae are different. If not, the above are probably good methods.
Jeff Prill
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Post by africaone on May 13, 2011 23:33:51 GMT -8
thanks Jeff,. I will try genital examination. I had yet checked length, antennas as other extrernal characters without succes. the problem is that main are yet mounted / glued on small card and are very small (the specimens being smaller than the genital armature of my usual groups  and .... I have no expexience with dissection of such small things. may be also all are of the same sex  |
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Post by thanos on May 14, 2011 1:53:13 GMT -8
Most possibly they are not all of the same sex..Just Paussidae are very difficult to sex by morphology,as they don't have distinct differences.The antennae are the same in both sexes..Maybe in some species (like for example in Paussus manicanus) the tibias are wider and the tarsa shorter in the female,and also the last abdominal segment is more spherical in the female..,but I find that in most species the sexes look very similar. So,I would agree with Jeff,that the only method is genitalia examination.I understand the difficulty in their preparation,as these beetles are so small..but I think is the best method here. Here is an interesting paper,where some pairs of some species of Paussidae are illustrated...check how similar are the sexes. www.nlu.unibas.ch/Publikationen/papers/AnnCarnegie_2006_PaussMuseum.pdfThanos |
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and .... I have no expexience with dissection of such small things.