Hysterocrates hercules....

MizM · Jun 7, 2004

Steve Nunn said:
Hidy ho MizM

Possible junior synonym. That means that of the two or more animals to be synonymised (placed under the same name), the one(s) described after the first become(s) the junior synonym. Of the animals synonymised, the first to be described is the senior synonym and has the right to retain its name. In this specific case the name H.gigas will remain (if synonymised) and H.hercules would be considered the same as gigas.

Clear as mud???

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks Steve! As the old saying goes; "You learn something new every day!"

Your explantation was actualy QUITE clear and concise, Theraphosid taxonomy is what is as clear as mud!!

Midwest Art · Jun 9, 2004

H. crassipes

H. crassipes, identifiable as juveniles and adults by their thicker IV legs. They also max out at a smaller size than H. gigas.

N-Joy
Art

Midwest Art · Jun 9, 2004

H. gigas

Hysterocrates gigas adult female pictured, note the IV legs are not as "thick" as H. crassipes.

N-Joy
Art

MizM · Jun 9, 2004

Yet another beautiful specimen, Art!! (Wipes drool from keyboard.) How large is she?

Midwest Art · Jun 9, 2004

Hysterocrates hercules

Hysterocrates adult female. Some of the controversy stems from the pic in Russ Gurley's book of the female with an immense dome like carapace. Here is a pic of a wild caught female, she dropped an eggsack over a year ago. Those of you who purchased from us then got her babies. The real deal!

N-Joy
Art

Midwest Art · Jun 9, 2004

H. herc pic

N-Joy
Art

Midwest Art · Jun 11, 2004

H. crassipes

Thanks,

The H. crassipes is a 4" female.

N-Joy
Art

DE3 · Jun 18, 2004

Will the REAL H hercules please stand up?....if possible?

Midwest Art said:
H. crassipes, identifiable as juveniles and adults by their thicker IV legs. They also max out at a smaller size than H. gigas.

N-Joy
Art

It bugs me that we seem to have several sources of "real" H hercules that don't appear to be the same animal. The only general consensus on this legendary tarantula I can detect is that there is no general consensus.

Having said that "dangerous" mouthful, I can only hope that every dealer in here isn't pissed at me. Allow me to go on to say that I genuinely appreciate everbodies input in this thread -- Art, Botar, Todd, Aussie dude, and everybody else I cant call to mind right now.

Art -- you may have a good point here. If you look at the first post in this thread, it appears to me that the pictures may show slightly beefier legs than gigas, or "herc". The color of my Hystero seems similar to your crassipes. Thank you for making an extra effort to share your info.

DE3 · Jun 18, 2004

Will the REAL H hercules please stand up?....if possible?

xenesthis said:
Fellow Hysterocrates spp. keepers:

Keep in mind what Rick West's site has on his pic:

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...l&imageid=15B02882KD0B7KAEC2K14D61D2D866DAFA8

"Hysterocrates hercules [poss. jr. syn. of H. gigas Pocock, 1897] Pocock, 1899, female".

I've always thought this as well. The mother of the current 2.5" females to 4.5" males imported from Europe last year into the U.S. hobby was a solid 8.5" legspan and the picture clearly showed that legspan.

Todd

Sorry Todd, I've read the above commentary several times, and a couple things just aren't clear to me. Could you please try and help me out?

Todd: "I've always thought this as well"
DE3: Thought what as well?

Todd: "The mother of the current 2.5" females to 4.5" males imported from Europe last year into the U.S. hobby was a solid 8.5" legspan and the picture clearly showed that legspan."
DE3: Are you refering to the Rick West picture?

Thanks

FryLock · Jun 18, 2004

Im going off on a limb again here but the type is to baddy damaged to compare any living spiders against as Steve as said (id heard this said by Richard Gallon but Steve as probably seen the type for himself) plus I believe Pocock’s paper does not give enough useable details to use on its own to check any suspected H.Hercules against, so as Steve as layed out any H.Hercules in the hobby are Hysterocrates.sp (Poss hercules) but can never be proven as such (like DE3 i too mean no disrespect to anyone) anyhow H.greshoffi now that’s a nice spider pity they have never been imported

.

FryLock · Jun 18, 2004

Just a quick follow up to clean that little jk' up the spiders i saw as H.greshoffi where H.gigas sized but a light sandy brown colour and may have not been what they where beeing sold as, but they did have the incrassate tibia on leg 4, dont place your orders iv not seen them in the hobby for over 20 years

xenesthis · Jun 18, 2004

H. hercules debate (never-ending

DE3 and all:

To answer your question DE3,

>DE3: Thought what as well?

That H. hercules and H. gigas are the same T and some taxonomist will merge them with H. gigas being the senior name.

>Todd: "The mother of the current 2.5" females to 4.5" males imported from >Europe last year into the U.S. hobby was a solid 8.5" legspan and the picture >clearly showed that legspan."

The picture that I got two years ago was a female in the collection of a Norway breeder.

Todd

stewartb · Jun 18, 2004

Hello,

Couple of points.

With the "photographic identification" that is unfortunatley all to prevelant in the hobby how can anyone tell that the hysterocrates spec they have has not been hybridized at some point, resulting in a (for lack of a better term) "dirty spider". Unless its lineage can be traced back to wild caught parents, I would be very sceptical that any specimin of the Hysterocrates genus is still "pure" once it has reached a few generations within the pet trade. As we have seen from these disscussions, the same spider is i.d,ed as different things by different people. Unfortunatley, people breed from this type of I.d, or assume beacuse it was sold as X it must therefore be X.

Second point, not directed at anyone in particular.
When buying a spider that is sold as "the real deal" or the "true"....... How often has the male or female been checked against the type specimin??????? I would guess that the answer is not very often.

Regards,

Stew.

stemloop · Jun 18, 2004

Good points, Stewart.

stewartb said:
When buying a spider that is sold as "the real deal" or the "true"....... How often has the male or female been checked against the type specimin???????

In the case of the so-called "hercules," I think we can assume never. And while expecting this from a dealer would be asking for an unreasonable level of certainty, I don't think it would be unreasonable for a pricelist or web page to explicitly declare any known UNcertainty (hmmmmm..."known uncertainty"...sounded like Donald Rumsfeld there for a second!). It's not uncommon for pricelists to follow a generic name with "sp." to reflect that uncertainty. Seems like it should be a given for H. "hercules"/"gigas", and maybe other Hysterocrates. Uncertainty of specific ID doesn't change what the spider is, or how cool it is, or how big it gets, and I guess that most dealers have no problem saying exactly what they're selling. They're not bent on deception, and they just want lots of happy customers, right?

As you pointed out, though, it does present a problem for people who are serious about breeding, and breeding responsibly. I'm not sure what standard should be applied there, but obviously should be up to the individual breeder to go to the trouble to ensure there is no hybridization. Those are my thoughts, for whatever they're worth...

Todd

DE3 · Jun 18, 2004

I almost hate to say it, but now we're getting somewhere!...

To help maintain some clarity to this post within this thread regarding a very "muddy" topic, I'll stick to plain font. Mr Todd Gearhart will be quoted in Bold.

On 6/06/04 Todd posted:
Fellow Hysterocrates spp. keepers:

Keep in mind what Rick West's site has on his pic:

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...4D61D2D866DAFA8

"Hysterocrates hercules [poss. jr. syn. of H. gigas Pocock, 1897] Pocock, 1899, female".

I've always thought this as well.

On 6/18/04 Todd posted, in an attempt to clarify his I've always thought this as well. statement:
That H. hercules and H. gigas are the same T and some taxonomist will merge them with H. gigas being the senior name

It is very clear to me that Todd is saying that he has always believed that H. gigas, and H. hercules are the same T.

Going back in time a mere few months,the description of Hysterocrates hercules Todd published in Todd Gearheart’s Invertebrate Stocklist for Feb. 2004 from both the pdf document on his "portal site" and the same document in from his mailing list:

2.0 Hysterocrates hercules “African Goliath Baboon”, CB’02, 2 3/4”-3”, juvs,The “real” ones! Rare!, These are the real McCoys! Hind legs are proportional to
the front legs in length and width, carapace is oval, not elongated as in H. crassipes and H. gigas!

As I remember it, the same if not exact description of H. hercules for sale was ongoing for a period of time. How long exactly I don't know.

<edited>

xenesthis · Jun 18, 2004

Changes

DE3,

<edited>

Yeah, everybody knows how crazy the theraphosid taxonomy changes have been coming at us the last few years. Hobbyists have been changing their name labels over and over on the same species it's so bad.

Hysterocrates genus is no exception. What hobbyists and dealers have had to go by is what has been printed in the literature. The problem is the whole genus needs revision.

My old sale descriptions were valid at the time, but changes have happened. Did we see Rick's site last year say H. gigas was possibly a sr. name for the merger of H. hercules? No. Well, changes of opinion have happened, and so has mine. H.gigas WAS known to have thick back legs, but that old tale has been told over and over, but what we had called H. gigas for years in the hobby was instead H. crassipes, and what some had been calling H. gigas was instead H. hercules. Changes happen and so do opinions.

<edited>

Todd

xenesthis · Jun 18, 2004

Posting a species like Hysterocrates sp. ("hercules")

Another point.

Years ago, a certain dealer put on his price list exactly what has recommended on this thread:

Hysterocrates sp. (possbily "hercules")

Guess what? Many hobbyists bought these and a year later, when they traded or sold those same Ts, they sold them as:

Hysterocrates hercules

You can list something to be technically correct at the time, but some will change the name anyway.

Todd

FryLock · Jun 19, 2004

This is what i believe a H.gigas to look like the ceph is higher then it looks on the pic but is also elongated this spider was W/C sold as Hysterocrates.sp and a friend got these at cheaper price because they where not H.gigas at the time as Art as said every one seem to think H.gigas had to have a thicker 4th leg when consensus is now that spider is most likely H.crassipes. this spider is big well over 6" leg span but not as huge as these "hercules" are they the real thing well no one can say just try best as anyone can not to mix them with males of other Hysterocrates, im thinking tho if the type is to damaged for normal cladistic id why not DNA type the live against it.

Edit Ray G is not the only man in the UK to keep frozen spiders

Arachnoboards · Jun 19, 2004

Next personal attack and the thread gets closed.

The Arachnoboards Team

Martin H. · Jun 19, 2004

Hello Todd,

xenesthis said:
Did we see Rick's site last year say H. gigas was possibly a sr. name for the merger of H. hercules?

don't know when Rick put this comment on his website, but here are some quotes of two elder posts by Rick on the topic "Hysterocrates hercules" from two different mailing lists :

Here is a quote from the ATS_enthusiast mailing list by Rick West on this subject from Thu Nov 22, 2001:

Rick C. West said:
To all those 'claiming' to have Hysterocrates hercules

... I hate to be a 'bubble burster' but no one has been able to prove
H. hercules exists on the pet trade. The holotype female from
'Upper Niger' is in the British Museum of Natural History and
reportedly as large as Theraphosa blondi. The pet trade material
hails from Cameroon and lower Nigeria and reaches about half the
size of the 'type' H. hercules when mature.
Until all the Hysterocrates spp. 'types' have been examined and
compared, even H. hercules will remain suspect and could already
be synonymous with earlier described congeners. H. gigas and
H. crassipes are commonly sold as H. hercules as .... which one
would you sell more of if you were a dealer?! There's a photo on
my website of what I'm 'guessing' to be H. hercules. This specimen
was collected by a herper on the Niger/Nigeria border, and grew
to enormous proportions, similar to one Mark Hart had, however,
even though mine came from the correct zoogeographical range,
(Mark's locale was unknown) this is just a guess as the females are
extremely difficult (damn near impossible) to tell apart This issue
reminds me of the 'chicken and the egg' debate.
Rick C. West

source:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATS_enthusiast/message/2136

Another quote from the arachnid_world mailing list by Rick West on this subject posted Thu, 20 Jun 2002:

Rick C. West said:
A year ago, I stated the following opinion about the taxonomic
status of Hysterocrates and will repeat it again for those new to
the list.
There are presently (Platnick, 2000) 21 known Hysterocrates
spp. of which 13 of these species occur in the small West African
country of Cameroon. Cameroon is not a complicated
geographical country ... it has simple plains, plateaus and a few
mountains.
I believe that MANY of the Hysterocrates spp. are conspecific or
belong to the same species. Most of the Hysterocrates spp.
have been described by 6 authors, over 100 years ago, merely
from external morphological features. At that time, museum 'type-
specimen' were rarely borrowed, examined and compared to new
material. Comparions were made largely on the previous author's
written description and 'type-locality'. Pocock never examined
internal female genitalia of theraphosid spiders. Some of Pocock's
female theraphosid spiders have been found to be penultimate
males.
Like many other theraphosid genera, there needs to be a lot of
field sampling and comparison made to the collective examination
of 'type' specimens (if they still exist). Sadly, the lack of research
money, hostile climates in some of the countries, loss of 'type
specimens' and the resistance of museums to loan 'types' makes
any prospective theraphosid taxonomist throw in the towel!
As for Hysterocrates hercules ... the only 'type specimen' is a single
shattered female in the British Museum ... I suspect it's synonymous
with some of the other northern Cameroon Hysterocrates spp. There
have been a few enthusiasts, including myself, that have reared
'enormous' Hysterocrates to H. hercules size that were originally sold
on the pet trade as H. gigas. What is sold as 'H. gigas' may, in fact,
be something else ... who knows? The stridulating setae, coloration,
swollen lV leg and female genitalia are all too highly variable to be
used as a reliable taxonomic tool.
So, at the end of the day, in the pet trade, what do we have? All we
can do is try to breed what we 'feel' looks the same and comes from
the same locality ... not a perfect science!
Rick C. West

source:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arachnid_world/message/13595

all the best,
Martin

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