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At risk of repeating myself, I do come back to the fact that an adult female Chicken Spider was compared to the type of P. antinious and the differences were significantly different for it to be "Split" rather than "Lumped"
Without my notes I can't give specifics however, I do remember the occular arrangement and dimmensions of leg 4 were key markers in this. Colour, as all taxonomists will tell you (again and again and again!!) is not a marker, although it is sorely tempting with some spiders.
The reason a description paper was not published was basically because we had only one specimen and no male. This would make a flimsy identification paper, open to review, revision (and ridicule!)
I have huge respect for Todd's experience with Pamphobeteus and would defer to him on the subject in almost every case, but (once again repeating myself from my previous post) no one knows or is going to know for sure until at least 3 females and a male are keyed out properly.
With Craigs kind assistance we should be able to answer the riddle, publish the paper and get on with studying these beasts.
On a tangent, Craig - did you see the narrow-mouth Microhylid frog Chiasmocleis ventrimaculatata in any of the burrows? it looks like this;
The general theory is that the spiders tolerate the frog down their burrow as it eats ants, ticks, parasitic flies etc, in return the frog obviously gets the sort of security that only comes with multiple giant hairy spiders! This symbiotic relationship is far from unique to the Chicken Spider and I have heard several reports of similar behaviour from India North America and SE Asia.
Without my notes I can't give specifics however, I do remember the occular arrangement and dimmensions of leg 4 were key markers in this. Colour, as all taxonomists will tell you (again and again and again!!) is not a marker, although it is sorely tempting with some spiders.
The reason a description paper was not published was basically because we had only one specimen and no male. This would make a flimsy identification paper, open to review, revision (and ridicule!)
I have huge respect for Todd's experience with Pamphobeteus and would defer to him on the subject in almost every case, but (once again repeating myself from my previous post) no one knows or is going to know for sure until at least 3 females and a male are keyed out properly.
With Craigs kind assistance we should be able to answer the riddle, publish the paper and get on with studying these beasts.
On a tangent, Craig - did you see the narrow-mouth Microhylid frog Chiasmocleis ventrimaculatata in any of the burrows? it looks like this;
The general theory is that the spiders tolerate the frog down their burrow as it eats ants, ticks, parasitic flies etc, in return the frog obviously gets the sort of security that only comes with multiple giant hairy spiders! This symbiotic relationship is far from unique to the Chicken Spider and I have heard several reports of similar behaviour from India North America and SE Asia.
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