There are some You Tube vids on probing that are very good. It is pretty easy. The main thing is to get a nice probe kit with 5 or 6 sizes and that have a 'ball tip' on the end of the probe. You want to make sure you use a good sized probe for the snakes size, but without it being too big (if that makes sense). Use KY gel or mineral oil is OK I think, just not petroleum based products like Vasoline. You lube the probe and insert tip first on either side cloaca, and push very gently towards the snakes tail. If the probe inserts more than 5-6 subcaudal scales it is a male. Males need this extra room or pouch area to hold their hemipenes (privates). A female will have no pouch and therefore the probe insertion will stop at less than 5-6 subcaudals. There is sometimes a gray area where the probe inserts right at 5, 6 or maybe even 7 scales deep and it may be a little tricky to tell if the snake is male or female. I will usually 'pop' these snakes to decide. Many people make mistakes with these gray area 5-6 ones. Maybe that Spider of yours is in this gray area, however, the seller should've been more careful. I would triple check that spider and have someone pop it to be sure. Maybe you really do have a female after all?

Another thing is that I like to probe both sides of the snake's cloaca, not just one. Especially with the older & larger snakes that have been around, because sometimes a snake will have been probed by someone that was not careful and the very thin membrane that stops the probe when you insert it will become damaged and may even get a hole in it. Whether or not this can occur naturally I do not know, but I would tend to believe it is caused by a big & dumb human that wasnt careful. I have seen this where one side will probe 4 subcaudal scales and the other will probe 9 deep? If only one side is probed on a snake like this it could be very easy to mistake it for a male, when it is actually a female.

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