Entering new territory. My first tarantula.

[YungRasputin]

Oh, by the way- now I remember why they said my (California) tarantula was surely a female, without even checking the underside: it was because of her size. The females can live 20-25 years, while the males usually only live to 7 or 8 (10 max), & her "abdomen" was the size of a ping pong ball- she was huge, & all the males I ever saw were so tiny by comparison. I don't know if the lifespan & size differential applies to any other kinds of tarantulas- as I said, my experience with them is very limited, but they're all pretty cool.

sexual dimorphism is seen virtually all tarantula species - i think there may be a couple species where this may not be the case or is less extreme than in most cases but this true for like 99% of tarantulas - the size of the abdomen is largely dependent upon food intake and in both sexes it should be relatively proportional to the rest of their body tho as you say females are a bit bigger of course - lifespan wise i would say that’s about average - in their late stages of life males will just wander and mate until they’re a) eaten by the female or b) die of their own accord