mistake I will never make again

[Ray Gabriel]

I have been asked to comment on this post and i cannot add much more to Nicks post .

Sorry to say this but i dont think a couple of hundred names on a few bits of paper , from people not even from the area, will stop a multi million dollar development (unless you can raise the cash and beat the profit margin of the developer and buy the land from him!) just because of a spider, an arachnid which as we all know can kill you by jumping on you, and bites horses making thier hoves fall off, when the US government wont sign up to prevent global warming. (you could try to get some ploughshare tortoises (have i got the right one?) and introduce them into the area (dont get caught collecting them other wise your history), that might delay the developers but wont stop them.

Remember there are 1000 times more spider splatting artachnophobes than spider lovers (including keepers), so a pettition wont get you anywhere.

I know of one person on this site who found a spider colony in his hotel grounds, told the management as he thought it was very interesting and worth keeping, but next day saw the colony being sprayed in case they killed any of the other guests or scared them away (did i get this right?), on my last trip to Panama i went to a large spider colony i found in 2004, only to find a wide concrete pavement and electric street lighting..............colony gone.

The only way to save these is by getting them into captivity, and this can be done in 2 ways;

1/ allow a commercial dealer to collect all he can and sell them on,

2/ get a bunch of ATS or other spider people together and go and collect all the specimens and then distribute them for FREE (taking away the cash side of it you seem to hate .........£25 for an A. idiops spiderling? yes i know these are captive bred, but you dont get captive bred WITHOUT wild caught) to other keepers and breeders (if this goes of put me down for 20).

I have a few Cyriopagopus sp "Gandalfs Bridge" left so would be willing to use these in aprt exchange (and some cash) to get a group of 10 - 20 of these into captivity and get them breeding, all you need to do Toran is let me know who this dealer is (or let the dealer know i am interested in 20) and we can take it from there, I know a couple of people who will help me get this off the ground (housing etc) if the spiders can get over here.

There you go an offer for a third of the dealers stock straight to a breeder, i havent even sen the spider, what does it look like?

Ray

[Leon Lane]

There you go an offer for a third of the dealers stock straight to a breeder, i havent even sen the spider, what does it look like?

Ray

[Richard Gallon]

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about here. Seems to me that everybody here wants the same outcome: to ensure this particular species' population is safe guarded within its natural habitat.

Given that we know next to nothing about the species distribution of USA Aphonopelma species, why be so quick to assume this species only occurs within the area proposed for development? Unless this development is going to lay waste to a vast area of biogeographically similar habitat, it would seem highly unlikely that this single development will jeopardise the survival of the species as a whole.

There is insufficient evidence for an unidentified species, whose ecology and distribution is unknown and whose international trade is negligible-to-non-existent to be listed on CITES. CITES is not designed to protect species within a country - only to monitor/restrict/ban the trade between countries. There is no scientific evidence to support any CITES listing of this species. CITES listing can only help endangered species threatened by international trade. It does not help species threatened by habitat destruction or trade within a country!!

Is there really a massive commercial demand for what is essentially just another unidentified, brown Aphonopelma species?

Cheers,
Richard

[Nicola Dolby]

Well at least someone knows what colour it is!!!

[Nicola Dolby]

Hi Richard,
The original inference was that this was a species in small numbers being put in danger both by habitat development and , as was indicated, now by exploitation from a trader. The former, as has been pointed out, little can be done about and at the time of my post Ray and Mark had not informed us that distribution was wider than first thought. Regarding the latter point, as it appears the best way forward is captive breeding, which I have stated I am in favour of. Regarding CITES, at the time of my post I was unaware, as I have said, of the USA distribution and was commenting based upon the information given. For a species in the state indicated to me to be exploited in such a manner as Toran suggested, bearing in mind this might encourage others, could be a cause for a trade body like CITES to look at. If my comments were a knee-jerk reaction then - guilty. I was only commenting out of a) concern for a spid in apparent difficulty and b) because I was trying in my own naive way to help.

[Chris Hamilton]

Chris - good post

Toran - There is a tremendous amount of work that would need to be done to determine that this is a unique spider and not just a color variant of another. Specimens will need to be collected and morphological measurements will need to be looked at, DNA will need to be compared to the surrounding species to see if they are or are not the same, ecological data will need to be taken to see if they are living differently than other species in the area...
I'm not saying that it's not a separate species...I don't know. But there is a MASSIVE amount of variation in color and patterns in natural populations or organisms...most people don't realize that. It's especially important in North American tarantula species because of how similar they look.

Also...if people here are upset about the # of Aphonopelma being taken out of the wild for the hobby...you need to adjust your perception and take action as well in Africa and Asia. The # of Pterinochilus tarantulas and Pandinus scorpions coming out of Africa and the # of Haplopelma/Ornithoctonus tarantulas and Heterometrus scorpions coming out of Asia absolutely DWARFS the numbers coming from the US.

Chris

Hi Toran

Couple of small questions in regards to this:-

Are you sure this is the ONLY place you can find this species?
If yes then how do you know this?
What is the size of this tarantula colony (How many burrows to a square meter and over what kind of area? (average off course))
What is the land being developed into/for?
Why has this piece of land been picked?
How big is this species? (can't say I have seen it soz)


Cheers
Chris

[Dave Freeman]

Chris - good post

Toran - There is a tremendous amount of work that would need to be done to determine that this is a unique spider and not just a color variant of another. Specimens will need to be collected and morphological measurements will need to be looked at, DNA will need to be compared to the surrounding species to see if they are or are not the same, ecological data will need to be taken to see if they are living differently than other species in the area...
I'm not saying that it's not a separate species...I don't know. But there is a MASSIVE amount of variation in color and patterns in natural populations or organisms...most people don't realize that. It's especially important in North American tarantula species because of how similar they look.

Also...if people here are upset about the # of Aphonopelma being taken out of the wild for the hobby...you need to adjust your perception and take action as well in Africa and Asia. The # of Pterinochilus tarantulas and Pandinus scorpions coming out of Africa and the # of Haplopelma/Ornithoctonus tarantulas and Heterometrus scorpions coming out of Asia absolutely DWARFS the numbers coming from the US.

Chris

Are people here not most concerned about this species becoming rarer and rarer in the wild if loads are taken as captives?

[Chris Sainsbury]

Are people here not most concerned about this species becoming rarer and rarer in the wild if loads are taken as captives?

Hi Dave

I don't think this is the case, and it is more a case of what are the real facts about this species in the wild? Nothing can be done without these facts and that even goes for getting concerned.

Cheers
Chris

[Richard Shah]

This is why I dislike WC animals being kept as pets...

[Eric Reynolds]

Just to add to this, "reptist" currently has 8 eggsacs from this "species". CLICK HERE

Eric

[Ray Gabriel]

Just to add to this, "reptist" currently has 8 eggsacs from this "species". CLICK HERE

Eric

Cheers for the update

If they are being bred then i will drop my order down to 3 pairs, 8 eggsacs ill also buy 10 spiderlings.

Ray

[James Box]

i have to say, the pics on arachnoboards don't do it justice, if it's the same species.

[Carli Roberts]

I am also a member of one of the us forums, and I have posted a link to this thread. It has been suggested on that forum that it may be worthwile contacting this organisation.

http://www.sonorandesert.org/

Please forward any details of the area that you wish to have conserved to this organisation.
If this really is a genuine new undescribed species, and the habitat is very specific, then there may may be a good chance that there are other undescribed species of inverts in the ecosystem.