Species Descriptions

[Craig Mackay]

I was looking at all the different undescribed species in the hobby like Cyriopagus sp. "blue", Grammostola sp. "north" and Aphonopelma sp. "new river" etc and was wondering what stops these species from being described? What criteria need to be met for a valid description of a new species?

Cheers for your replys

[Colin D Wilson]

was wondering what stops these species from being described?

Time for one !!!

I'm sure one of our resident taxonomists (Richard, Peter etc) will answer you question in full shortly

Colin

[Richard Gallon]

They aren't necessarily undescribed, many are just unidentified.

It's not easy to work out if a tarantula species has been described before. Some species are only known from a couple of sentences written in Latin without any illustrations, and when translated basically say "a large hairy brown spider from South America"

That's why many spiders in the hobby are simply IDed to genus only (even then there can be difficulties).

Cyriopagopus sp. Blue is a well-known, described species (but for some odd reason still floats around the hobby with the sp. tag). Aphonopelma sp. "New River", may or may not be so new - who knows, it might have been described before from a brown faded husk on a pin back in 18-0-blob, lol.

So just because it's new to the hobby, doesn't mean it's a new species.

Check out the ICZN website for what criteria need to be met to describe a new species. But basically you need to be able to distinguish it from all the theraphosids described before - even the crusty brown jobs

Cheers,
Richard

[Craig Mackay]

I figured that would be the main constraint but wasn't entirley sure how much work was required to describe a species. Thanks Colin

[Craig Mackay]

Cheers Richard, quite a difficult and time consuming task I can imagine!! There certainly are a lot of big, hairy, brown T's to sort through

[Ray Gabriel]

I figured that would be the main constraint but wasn't entirley sure how much work was required to describe a species. Thanks Colin

I have 3? 4? genus changes in the pipeline (moving a species from one genus to another) and these have been about a year and still not published although finished, describing a species though really depends on how many other species there are in the genus and how many types you can access to compare against, then working out if the features you have found to differentiate the specie are stable to the individual spider or fit nicely into the range (variation) in those features for the species, and that is before you start writing up etc. To be done properly can take along time. With theraphosidae almost all the genera are in need of full revision, which can take years.

Ray

[Nicola Dolby]

Recently the "Gandalf's Bridge" was moved over to P. everetti. Any plans for other Cyriopagopus sp. to go there too? Thanks.

[Phil Rea]

Recently the "Gandalf's Bridge" was moved over to P. everetti. Any plans for other Cyriopagopus sp. to go there too? Thanks.

Now there's a leading question Nicola

[Chris Sainsbury]

Recently the "Gandalf's Bridge" was moved over to P. everetti. Any plans for other Cyriopagopus sp. to go there too? Thanks.

I always thought the case of this spider was more or less the same as the Lampropelma violaceopes . i.e. it has always been Phormingochilus everetti only like in the case of Lampropelma violaceopes it has been foundto be Cyriopagopus species.
After talking with Alvin Sehr and Volker von Wirth it was came to the conclusion that if done properly the main puzzle of the Asian tarantulas could be sorted out in as little as ten years but I think that is pushing it really, as I think just the time spent behind a mircroscope will amount to that what with all the new stuff turning up after every field trip!
all the best
Chris

[Nicola Dolby]

On the subject of describing/taxonomy I couldn't agree more Chris, were the funding available. I know the BTS does its bit but it would be nice to see increased investment for research from the Universities etc. As for Lampropelma, I'm not familiar with the scenario, so are Phormingochilus and Cyriopagopus synonymus? (I hope so, Cyriopagopus is much easier to type!!!) Thanks Chris. All the best.

[Phil Rea]

On the subject of describing/taxonomy I couldn't agree more Chris, were the funding available. I know the BTS does its bit but it would be nice to see increased investment for research from the Universities etc. As for Lampropelma, I'm not familiar with the scenario, so are Phormingochilus and Cyriopagopus synonymus? (I hope so, Cyriopagopus is much easier to type!!!) Thanks Chris. All the best.

No they're not Nicola. They are still distinct genera, so keep up with the typing