Dont change your Theraphosa labels...Yet.

[Jacobchinarian]

I agree with it as well, but you'll find that the majority of the members on here don't believe in God

I noticed this as well. I wonder why.

 

[Fran]

What god has to do with this? Beyond me.
We are talking about taxonomy on arachnids.

 

[xhexdx]

I didn't realize you were in charge of this thread, Fran.

Go back to work.

 

[Fran]

I didn't realize you were in charge of this thread, Fran.

Go back to work.

Joe, you are great at behaving like a total jerk.

Who said who was in charge.I said that what we are talking about has nothing to do with believing or not in God.
Why dont you just stay off the topics if you are not gonna contribute to the thread?
Whats your problem,Joe?
How come you always find a way to destroy the topics and create trouble? dont you see that is always you?

We are talking about Theraphosa here.

 

[xhexdx]

Fran, believe me, I know exactly what it is you're doing.

If you really want me to find every post of yours that wasn't on-topic with relation to the thread it was posted in, I'll have no problem doing it. Stop being so hypocritical and anal retentive because 'your' thread veered a tad in a direction you didn't want it to go.

 

[Hedorah99]

I didn't realize you were in charge of this thread, Fran.

Go back to work.

Didn't realize you were either.

I'll intervene as the little "God" of this forum. This will not become a religious discussion! Keep it on spiders or take it to the watering hole.

 

[Ms.X]

What god has to do with this? Beyond me.
We are talking about taxonomy on arachnids.

The topic of God was raised in relation to the original topic of understanding taxonomy (by four people):
1.

Simply put...taxonomic nomenclature is an attempt by man to understand the workings of God, a force that we will never understand.

2.

don't know about the rest of it but +1 on this statement.

3.

I agree with it as well, but you'll find that the majority of the members on here don't believe in God, so the few of us who do get jumped on pretty quickly. :}

4.

I noticed this as well. I wonder why.

Then, you chose to inquire about what God has to do with this topic, but I believe the intentions of those quoted above were perfectly clear regarding relevance to the original topic. You have every right not to share similar beliefs, but there was nothing off topic about the above posts.

Just because you don't agree with the direction that a thread is taking does not give you the right to act like a child and commence with the name calling. You also shouldn't accuse people of not contributing to a thread when they were merely commenting and expanding on the ideas of others.

Joe, you are great at behaving like a total jerk.

Who said who was in charge.I said that what we are talking about has nothing to do with believing or not in God.
Why dont you just stay off the topics if you are not gonna contribute to the thread?
Whats your problem,Joe?
How come you always find a way to destroy the topics and create trouble? dont you see that is always you?

We are talking about Theraphosa here.

Sorry for the rant, Fran, but many times when you don't like something, you tend to jump on people quickly with ridiculous accusations prior to confirming their validity.

 

[xhexdx]

Didn't realize you were either.

I'll intervene as the little "God" of this forum. This will not become a religious discussion! Keep it on spiders or take it to the watering hole.

I never claimed to be, if you hadn't noticed.

 

[Fran]

I cant wait for Rogerio to publish his work regarding Theraphosa.
I did not like the germans paper one bit.

 

[Jacobchinarian]

I'm sorry I was part of the derailing of this thread. Can we please get back on track. This is about theraphosa not god.

 

[Merfolk]

Quote: Simply put...taxonomic nomenclature is an attempt by man to understand the workings of God, a force that we will never understand.


I see it not as a religious statement, but rather a belief that nature doesn't draw clear lines between species, genuses and all. The source of Nature, God or else, changes very little in the message. Men like to subdivise everthing and sometimes go wrong...... When I was young, the animal kingdom was solidly divided between Mammals, birds, reptiles and so on and it was believed that nothing would cross those borders, save for the platypus and other monotremes. Now we have almost warm blooded fishes, almost cold blooded mammals that live like ants (mole rat) , venomous birds and mammals so the attributes of an animal category can be found in another one. There are Ts that I think are wrongly classified and I expect them to be reclassified, it's a reference rather than a law.

Believing in God or not is irrelevant since if there is a god, Nature is an emanation of him , and we are talking about how to classify parts of nature relative to each other, not to prove a point about how they got created. What I see is that those artificial intellectual frontiers will get blurred while we find more and more common traits about different animals.

 

[Nerri1029]

Quote: Simply put...taxonomic nomenclature is an attempt by man to understand the workings of God, a force that we will never understand.


I see it not as a religious statement, but rather a belief that nature doesn't draw clear lines between species, genuses and all. The source of Nature, God or else, changes very little in the message. Men like to subdivise everthing and sometimes go wrong...... When I was young, the animal kingdom was solidly divided between Mammals, birds, reptiles and so on and it was believed that nothing would cross those borders, save for the platypus and other monotremes. Now we have almost warm blooded fishes, almost cold blooded mammals that live like ants (mole rat) , venomous birds and mammals so the attributes of an animal category can be found in another one. There are Ts that I think are wrongly classified and I expect them to be reclassified, it's a reference rather than a law.

Believing in God or not is irrelevant since if there is a god, Nature is an emanation of him , and we are talking about how to classify parts of nature relative to each other, not to prove a point about how they got created. What I see is that those artificial intellectual frontiers will get blurred while we find more and more common traits about different animals.

Well put

No one can/would say that taxonomy is an exact science. It is wrought with opinions and varying ideals. Last I knew the definition of a species hadn't been nailed down yet.

 

[dannyboypede]

Let's all love each other and just not change our Theraphosa labels...yet

And just to brighten everyone's mood:
:3:

--Dan

 

[Lorum]

Last I knew the definition of a species hadn't been nailed down yet.

+1. And probably won't ever be. There are different "definitions" (or attempts to do so), but not a clear, unique and universal one. If such a definition of species would (or could) be made, a lot of things we know would change.

The Theraphosa genus needs a revision before more species are described. If Bertani is going to do a part of that revision (proposing Theraphosa spinipes as a new combination), it is perfectly OK (IMO). The description of "Theraphosa stirmi" is just a -not funny- joke (again, IMO).

 

[Bosing]

Well,

I for one appreciate the tidbits of information in this thread. I guess I would have to change the sticker label on my T. spinipes again...

 

[smashtoad]

Quote: Simply put...taxonomic nomenclature is an attempt by man to understand the workings of God, a force that we will never understand.


I see it not as a religious statement, but rather a belief that nature doesn't draw clear lines between species, genuses and all. The source of Nature, God or else, changes very little in the message. Men like to subdivise everthing and sometimes go wrong...... When I was young, the animal kingdom was solidly divided between Mammals, birds, reptiles and so on and it was believed that nothing would cross those borders, save for the platypus and other monotremes. Now we have almost warm blooded fishes, almost cold blooded mammals that live like ants (mole rat) , venomous birds and mammals so the attributes of an animal category can be found in another one. There are Ts that I think are wrongly classified and I expect them to be reclassified, it's a reference rather than a law.

Believing in God or not is irrelevant since if there is a god, Nature is an emanation of him , and we are talking about how to classify parts of nature relative to each other, not to prove a point about how they got created. What I see is that those artificial intellectual frontiers will get blurred while we find more and more common traits about different animals.

Thanks, Merfolk. Yes, my main statement included God, but was not centered there. Your statements reflect exactly what I am saying...and those birds are poisonous, not venomous. My apologies, just wanted to add that before Bill jumped in to educate me more about my lack of scientific understanding.

Trying to understand major relationships between animal groups down to their common ancestor is one thing...but spending taxpayer dollars to argue about whether a theraphosid from each side of the goobigundo river should be classified as different species is a complete freaking waste of time, because it does not matter...at all...except to the pointy-head cashing the grant check.

Thanks again.

---------- Post added at 09:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 AM ----------

The term "species" itself is vague.

Last I knew the definition of a species hadn't been nailed down yet.

Yep...and it never will. Because what many "taxonomists" call subspecies interbreed all the time. Geographic separation forces them to change away from one another, but that can end as easily as it started...and they can still breed.

Tigers and lions can produce offspring, they may be infertile, but they can produce young.

What really blows my mind, and I'm talkin splits it open with extreme prejudice...is this:

When Darwin went to Galapagos he discovered nothing more than what man himself had already been doing with the domestic dog for 4,000 freaking years, yet people acted like Darwin taught himself to fly. It is maddening...but it keeps lots of professors diving in coral reefs and getting paid to do so, doesn't it?

 

[treeweta]

ive knew collectors who got in a major flip over the introduction of apophysis into the hobby, 'is it a blondi? is it a new species? its worth more than a blondi etc ad nauseum.

Im always more concerned about having an healthy, active animal that i find attractive in my collection than worrying about where it fits in the arbitrary notion of species, it is true to say that defining a species is open to debate precisely because its arbitrary.

While its reasonable to say that a lasiodora parahybana and a megaphobema mesomelas are different species (as far as i know there is no way to get their genes combined through mating, let alone to produce viable offspring) more recently diverged populations of animals like the current living examples that we label theraphosa are more tricky to pigeonhole because you have variable multiple populations, in some populations the genes will be isolated from others in others they will be free flowing, where those genes may or may not flow changes over time, its the same with any group of organisms.

Again its mere convenience, if 'burgundy' is a distinct separately diverged subset of animals (that have a shared trait of no long hairs on the patella??)from those we call blondi then thats a fact, if we want to give those a separate name then so be it, the notion exists only in our head, if a 'blondi' finds itself in a tank with a 'burgundy' it wont give a hoot, it will try and mate (i guess) with it!!!!!

This isnt just theraphosa either, take any of the pet shop tarantulas and we could have the same debate about any of them, im sure there are immense and distinct populations of grammostola that could be given all manner of different names.

of course that doesnt mean that the idea of species isnt useful, it is. Once we agree on what we mean by a given definition it can then be used, so if somebody wants a burgundy vs a blondi, you expect to get something that is contained within that definition. The distinction just becomes more generally pronounced the less recently related an organism is to another, so if you wake up with a scorpion on your chest its characteristics will allow you to ascertain if its padinus or buthus.......something that would be useful to know.....



@smashtoad.

I was always under the impression that tarantula taxonomists did their 'work' purely as an amateur pursuit even if they are otherwise professional biologists.

 

[sjl197]

Firstly, can we please all just put any discussion of 'spinipes' aside for now. All that is being reported is hearsay, save for the abstract by Dr Bertani at the ISA congress in 2007 in Brazil. The abstract was a poster presentation. A great conference, which i also attended and enjoyed very much by the way. But, the key point is - there is no formal publication to formally transfer L.spinipes to Theraphosa, nor to synonymise it with any existing species.

The holotype specimen of L.spinipes a very old and damaged female, and i personally have little hope it is possible to match well enough against any of the current 'species' of Theraphosa. Further, to go back to an earlier comment, the original Ausserer description only unhelpfully mentions collected in 'Brazil', rather than any more specific locale (like Sao Paulo and Santa Catalina) that was suggested later by Mello-Letao, without any reference to the actual type specimen, and so cant be trusted. There is no way that real Theraphosa will range into Santa Catalina in far south Brasil.

Now, until anything is published on L.spinipes, which it isnt yet - we are dealing with diagnosing differences between T.blondi and T.stirmi. The presence tibial spurs alone seems reliable to diagnose T.apophysis. But, what is the point of resistively clinging onto the temporary hobby name 'Theraphosa sp burgandy' if your spiders have been exported from southern guyana and they perfectly fit the description on T.stirmi ? No reason at all, they're T.stirmi. This is formally described and named, no matter what you think of the paper or their failure to look at the T.blondi type(s) for example.

Now, onto defining the species. There are so many cases in biology when defining a species is not open to debate, nor arbitary, so the previous comment that suggests that is complete crap. Yes there are many species concepts (i can name you about 27 if you want), but in many cases ALL these ways of defining species all fit... two species can be geographically isolated, reproductively isolated (prezygotically, and postzygotically), have different morphology, genetically divergent above a certain %, or form reciprocally monophyetic genetic groups, etc etc. There are other cases where only some of these criteria fit to diagnose two forms as two species, but those together still a good argument that you infact are looking at two species., i think the crux is they just have to be diagnosably different by some concept or preferably several. When two 'species' are diagnosable by several species concepts, surely we can have more confidence there are indeed two species, and those species will maintain their differences on interbreeding, introgression or hybridisation, whatever. Ie they are on different phylogenetic trajectories if you want me to be explicit. There is never going to be one species concept that fits everything, and there doesnt need to be. If you want only one thing alone, its called a pluralistic species concept, or pluralism.

Now ok back to Theraphosa. As i said, the presence of tibial spurs alone seems reliable to diagnose T.apophysis from the 'blondi-stirmi' group. Well, there have now been morphological differences proposed to differentiate T.stirmi from southern guyana, and T.blondi from elsewhere (ie from french guiana and north suriname as indicated by Rudloff and Weinmann), so cant we now move forward from here to properly evaluate these proposed differences? You know, in essence, science advanced by testing hypotheses?. So how? It would perhaps be most useful to ask questions about specimens from geographically intermediate localities, ie are Theraphosa also present in southern Suriname and what do they look like?, ie do they have intermediate features / a mixture of the features that allegedly separate T.strimi from T.blondi. It needs to be further evaluated whether the two currently accepted species are geographically isolated (ie no geographic intermediates), and whether the presented characteristics to diagnose them are stable (and different) within the two species. For now though, until someone does such additional characterization of WC material, there are two closely related species named and much of what can be figured out from hobby material which could be artificially hybridised is rather limited.

So, indeed the challenge comes if you are only looking at spiders that seem to have some characteristics of T.stirmi and others of T.blondi. And its an even greater challenge if you are only looking at your captive bred spiders with no knowledge of the features in the parents, nor knowledge of the geographic origin of those specimen (or their parents). But, the potential for intermediates is key to determining if there are two morphological species or not. BUT, You really have to be careful when you are not looking at WC exports or direct descendants, as of course, captive breeding between parents with differing characteristics (like amount of hair on the patella) is very likely going to lead to variability in the offspring isnt it? (here i don't know if it does or not, but testing such hypotheses can help figure out what are the reliable differences between such closely related forms - so why dont some of you big-shot Theraphosa breeders do something like compare how stable these proposed diagnostic features are across all the offspring from an eggsac for example?, but please do use parents from the same WC collection - and hence you are restricted to only using specimens one natural locality, not mixing different geographic forms which can be expected to naturally have accumuated differences and variability by distance).

Anyway, regardless of all this, it seems some of you dont want any taxpayer money to support funding biologists (professional or not) to figure out what species are there 'on the two sides of the 'goobigundo' river'... so maybe we will never know about Theraphosa in places like south Suriname, nor the other species that live in places like that. We could of course wait for all the undescribed biodiversity in south Suriname to go extinct, then we wont have any wild Theraphosa with intermediate characteristics to worry about.. and we will have two isolated species, until of course humans make those others extinct in the wild too...

Until then, if you have a species of Theraphosa in your collection which was sold as 'Theraphosa sp burgandy', exported from Souuth Guyana, and have the diagnostic characteristics of the described species T.stirmi, then DO change your tank labels to say T.stirmi please... otherwise you are simply ignoring the current science, and we havent progressed anywhere. If you are resistant to that current science, then you might also be happy with thinking all species were divinely created in their current form, and they are immutable while you are at it.

 

[blay]

can someone post a picture of real T. blondi and "fake" t. blondi aka. t.spinipes/stamini, side by side so i can se the differences betwen two species.
please....

 

[treeweta]

Now, onto defining the species. There are so many cases in biology when defining a species is not open to debate, nor arbitary, so the previous comment that suggests that is complete crap. Yes there are many species concepts (i can name you about 27 if you want)

Instead of saying that what i said was complete crap i'd prefer you to explain why you think im wrong. the definition of species is open to debate (you admit there are 27 concepts), its a term of convenience for us, i'd argue that it is therefore arbitrary. I'd say that the concept of species is arbitrary but the things we use to define them are based on practical concepts like viable offspring, isolation etc.

I think you misunderstood me, i didnt mean arbitrary in some flippant and non consensual form, plainly there is an attempt to define what we mean as a species.
It is a perfectly valid and useful concept though and its reasonable to say that T.blondi and bsmithi are separate species within that framework but ultimately when you get to more recently diverged populations things become far more fuzzy.

Also importantly to consider the notion through time, when you consider organism populations back in time and how they link to each other through common ancestry the notion of species then can be demonstrated as actually meaningless, when we consider currently living groups the fact that all the ancestors are dead and their descendents sufficiently different can we begin our notion of species in its practical sense.

i will again say that the notion is arbitrary but useful, its like shoe size, ultimately its made up but it is exceedingly useful as a concept despite the fact that human feet vary far more than the increments of size would dictate.

sjl197, dont get me wrong, grouping organisms by 'species' and higher levels (therefore) is an incredibly useful thing to do, im talking about this in a theoretical sense through time, i'd be an ass to suggest that the difference between tarantulas and eurypterids was practically meaningless because they share a common ancestor way back, and therefore you could find 2 trajectories from their last common ancestor which are joined by a series of intermediates. I hope that when i said arbitrary i now make sense to readers.

edit, actually changing the word arbitrary to 'artificial' might be better.

treeweta.