Interesting. I have not heard anything about that. Last I heard, B. annitha and B. smithi were two distinct species. I quick search on Google turned up the same information. Anyone care to correct/confirm my information?
The paper with the nomenclature changes and their justifications hasn't been published yet therefore wouldn't be updated on the World Spider Catalog or anywhere else other than pet forums. You are 100% correct in that no one should be updating labels until the paper is actually published. This is what irritates the crap out of me about some involved in the pet trade. Someone gets information from someone else and repeats it all over the place online with nothing published to back it up. There is a reason researchers don't discuss their work before it is published.
Jorge himself has already publicly posted images between the hobby annitha and smithi referring them only as B. smithi and B. hamorii.
@AphonopelmaTX fortunetly in this case Jorge has publicly made changes regardless of the papers been pucblished.
I can't speak for others, but I completely believe that they will be. In fact, my specimens have notes on their enclosures to remind me to keep checking for a publication. But this thread exemplifies why nothing should be adopted preemptively. It opens a lot of room for unintentional cross breeding while we wait for a paper to come out.
I understand but it doesn't change the fact that on Facebook AB Jorge has posted the images and classify the two species by their new giving new that was intended to be in the first place.
Agreed, but that does not make it official. In fact, apparently myself and the OP have even been spelling "homorii" incorrectly because there is no publication to fall back on.
Haha! Didn't realise you guys were spelling it wrong. Yeah it's B. hamorii.
Well, by the time you get it and start selling slings from the inevitable breeding, the change will hopefully be in effect.
You should have seen it about a year ago when Aphonopelma got shaken up! Now that was a mess.