Good news! Last Friday (July 24th) I woke up to a freshly molted sc. gigantea. Premolt it was 25cm and while I didn't take any post molt measurements, it didn't really grow much, if at all. Still, I'm just happy for a successful molt.
There was some worry for the next few days though, as it took an exceedingly long time to harden up afterwards – almost a full week! I don't have air conditioning so during the day it gets up to about 30°C and at night it's in the low 20s. The terrarium it's in now has plenty of ventilation and the substrate is also not overtly moist. Really, I have no explanation for it. However, when I first received the specimen, I noticed that there was a "kink" on it's head plate, so it's very likely that it's taken a long time to harden before.
So anyways, here are the pics! (hides removed for photographing).
The "Doom Sexing Method" didn't quite work out as well as with my alternans since the exoskeleton was a bit fragile and partially fell apart making things difficult. That said, while not 100% certain, I'm still thinking that it's a female because there's no apparent triangular shaped web spinner.
There was some worry for the next few days though, as it took an exceedingly long time to harden up afterwards – almost a full week! I don't have air conditioning so during the day it gets up to about 30°C and at night it's in the low 20s. The terrarium it's in now has plenty of ventilation and the substrate is also not overtly moist. Really, I have no explanation for it. However, when I first received the specimen, I noticed that there was a "kink" on it's head plate, so it's very likely that it's taken a long time to harden before.
So anyways, here are the pics! (hides removed for photographing).
The "Doom Sexing Method" didn't quite work out as well as with my alternans since the exoskeleton was a bit fragile and partially fell apart making things difficult. That said, while not 100% certain, I'm still thinking that it's a female because there's no apparent triangular shaped web spinner.