I picked up this female the other day. Down the road when I want to pair her up... I'd like to know exactly what I am dealing with. Nicaraguan or Honduran.
If that's the case, then no need to breed. If you're that uncertain.
It's nicaraguan, no need to create more hybrids.
While both nicaraguan and honduran can be labeled as B. albopilosum, note that they are different localities. Not different morphs. The nicaraguan variant is still quite new to this hobby, so please don't encourage hybrids of different localities.
A "morph" and a "variant" are the same thing. There is evidence that they are two different, but very closely related species, judging by the spermathecae of the females. They really really shouldn't be bred together.While both nicaraguan and honduran can be labeled as B. albopilosum, note that they are different localities. Not different morphs. The nicaraguan variant is still quite new to this hobby, so please don't encourage hybrids of different localities.
Agreed, absolutely.A "morph" and a "variant" are the same thing. There is evidence that they are two different, but very closely related species, judging by the spermathecae of the females. They really really shouldn't be bred together.
My issue with the terms "Nicaraguan" for the fluffy white ones and "Honduran" for the fluffy gold ones is that people can get confused that they are only restricted to these two countries. The fluffy white ones are Brachypelma albopilosum (pending a change in genus placement, but that is another discussion) and also occur in Costa Rica. The full distribution of the fluffy gold ones are not completely known, I don't think, but the label of "Honduran" means that is the country they were either collected in, exported from, or both; the two are not mutually exclusive. The label of "Nicaraguan" following the species name means the same thing. Since Costa Rica bans the commercial export of its wild life, it's plausible that the country of collection and export is Nicaragua but I always wonder if they were really collected in Costa Rica and exported from Nicaragua. Brachypelma albopilosum used to be called "Costa Rican Curly Hair" many many years ago.
Personally, I would like if the hobby would stop calling them both Brachypelma albopilosum. It should be Brachypelma albopilosum for the white ones and Brachypelma sp. "Gold Curly Hair" for the gold ones pending publication of taxonomic studies of these two species.
You remembered! I didn't know if mentioning that you were the source of the pictures was appropriate since you sent them to me in a PM. I saved them though and here they are. Your pictures are the evidence I refer to that these are different species.
YES.You remembered! I didn't know if mentioning that you were the source of the pictures was appropriate since you sent them to me in a PM. I saved them though and here they are. Your pictures are the evidence I refer to that these are different species.
Brachypelma sp. "Golden Curly Hair" (Honduras)
View attachment 303038
Brachypelma albopilosum (Nicaragua)
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Anything else. Brachypelma spp. readily breed amongst each other. People from the reptile hobby wanting to make "variants" but don't understand how speciation works.
I'm sure I read something along the lines that the Honduran variant should actually be called B. aurapilosum (or something like that), I can't for the life of me remember where. Hopefully the two species get sorted with the revision and we can be done with all this "hobby/true form" nonsense.
Brachy species will readily breed with each other, it's generally assumed that they're all vagans hybrids though (at least over here anyway).
You are probably thinking of an article published in the journal of the British Tarantula Society by Ray Gabriel and Stuart Longhorn. Or at least read something somewhere that was based on that article. They published an article about these two types of Brachypelma albopilosum in which they stated something along the lines of how the scientific name of the gold colored ones would be more accurate as Brachypelma aureopilosum. "Aureo" meaning gold while "albo" meaning white. There were no nomenclature changes in that article. It was just an overview of how there are two different "curly hair" species in the hobby, how they are different, where they come from, and so on.