Grammostola rosea and Grammostola porteri.

[Emotionlessness]

Can anyone explain to me what is what with these?

I have been doing a lot of reading around and there are lots of people saying one thing and lots of people saying other things.

I have not been able to find anything set in stone.

I have heard there was no taxonomic changes and that it was just traders doing it to differentiate between their stock.
I have heard that G. rosea is the RCF/NCF and the G. porteri is the DCF...and vice versa.
I have heard that it is do do with the colour of the bristles on the legs, amoung a plethora of other theories.

Am I missing something here?

 

[edgeofthefreak]

Only starting checking the World Spider Catalogue recently, but according to them, they are a unique species and quite separate from G. rosea.

http://research.amnh.org/iz/spiders/catalog/THERAPHOSIDAE.html

Search for 'porteri' and you find 2 results, and the minor mess it was in (being in Lasiodora for 20-30 years will do that).
If you search for 'spatulata' you get 14 counts of trying to name various Grammies with that name.

My best guess for the confusion, would be dealers who can't tell the difference, and get their stock mixed up. Just my thoughts.

 

[BobGrill]

In this Animal Planet Tarantulas book by Michael Andreas Jacobi, the author has the Chilean Rose Hair listed as G. porteri. Just wanted to share that, because the guy's been in the hobby for 35+ years, and while I have no idea what his reputation in the eyes of most hobbyists is, he's obviously got some very significant amount of experience. So I'm sort of doubting he has the species misidentified, but what do I know.

 

[Keith B]

Apparently right now, for the time being as things always change, they are two separate species, and are to be treated as such. I personally am a bit skeptical at times about it, and IF they are indeed two separate species (DNA might be nice for this one, is there? probably not..), then the genealogy has been cross-bred into each other anyway over the years in the hobby. If you google "Grammostola rosea" you only make it for about 12 pictures before finding an image of a "G. rosea" mating with a "G. porteri"... that's pretty quick for searching the general scientific name and not anything specific..

 

[viper69]

In this Animal Planet Tarantulas book by Michael Andreas Jacobi, the author has the Chilean Rose Hair listed as G. porteri. Just wanted to share that, because the guy's been in the hobby for 35+ years, and while I have no idea what his reputation in the eyes of most hobbyists is, he's obviously got some very significant amount of experience. So I'm sort of doubting he has the species misidentified, but what do I know.

Really? That's a bit surprising he does. Let's see, the Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History or very experienced individual..hmmm I go with the curator on taxonomic questions.

 

[persistent]

what I do not understand is lately you'll see people post pics of G. rosea NCF and almost everytime there's someone posting to say it's a G. porteri. Just because of the colour. And so a lot of hobbiests are now suddenly relabelling their G. rosea NCFs as G. porteri. This confusion is getting out of hand.

 

[Emotionlessness]

Does anyone have any pictures of the 2 of them? I have been googling each of them and it throws up a lot of the same pictures for each of them.

 

[drgonzo]

G.rosea

G.porteri

 

[Emotionlessness]

So the G. porteri is the NCF? What is the DCF then? porteri as well?

 

[ClosetCollector]

Every rose hair I have ever seen in a pet shop labeled G. Rosea looks like a G.porteri so I am confused now as well, by the look of the two pictures I was sold a G porteri???

Is the color form the only difference??

 

[edgeofthefreak]

Technically, if they are a fully separate species of the Grammostola genus, then their DNA wouldn't be the same. But that's not too easy to tell just by looking at a spider, or even a picture. In the pics above, they don't appear to be the same lighting, and possibly not even the same camera. Pictures can be very deceiving, especially with creatures that are designed to refract light for defence.

Most likely, if you had 2 spiders, G. porteri and G. rosea, side by side... and they were of approximately the same size/age/weight/pre-molt status, etc... you could likely see differences after a few minutes. From their I'm sure it would a matter of experience with noticing those differences in other possible miss-matches.

Better still, if you have a microscope and molts (or very patient creatures) you can find the differences much easier.

 

[viper69]

Technically, if they are a fully separate species of the Grammostola genus, then their DNA wouldn't be the same. But that's not too easy to tell just by looking at a spider

What, I can see DNA with my eyes.

I have to say in those 2 pics, I've seen TONS of rose hairs that are in theory rosea, but sure look like that porteri. SO is the red phase Rose Hair exist only as a rosea, or in porteri too?? This is highly confusing these 2 similar looking species.

 

[thevez2]

A lot of people are saying G. rosea is now G. porteri. This is a very poor choice of words as it implies something very different form what they are trying to say. Nobody is implying that the two species are the same, or that one species has been changed to the other. What they are trying to say is that the Chilean rose tarantula (NCF/DCF) that we used to know as the G. rosea, is now known as G. porteri.

This debate goes all the way back to 2006 (possibly earlier). The Chilean rose had long been imoprted as G. rosea. Then some importers started to change the name to G. porteri. Others kept them as G. rosea. Obviously this caused a lot of confusion. Then we started to see the Chilean red rose/flame rose imported as G. rosea as well. In the hobby we referred to these as the G. rosea RCF to keep them clear.

So we have tons of different poeple coming up with all of these different color forms (normal/pink, dark/gray, red/copper), but they were all considered to be G. rosea.

Now in 2008, we start to see some of the more taxonomicaly oriented folks in the hobby doing some research and coming the the conclusion that the importers possibly had it right all along. They suggested that the red/copper form or RCF were the true G. rosea, and that all the other color forms were actually G. porteri. Many hobbyists balked and said they would wait for some more scientific evidence came around to support it, while others jumped on board.

Like the metric system in the United States this idea has taken a long time to be accepted and even longer to actually be put into use across the board (still working). This movement seems to have been in greater hobby acceptance since about 2010 and continues to grow. Today it is generally accepted as true across the board. However, the word still isn't out hobby wide. Some dealers and nearly all pet stores still list the NCF as G. rosea. Which is why we are still discussing this today.

The reality is, we have no way of knowing what spider is what species definitively, until somebody does the taxonomic and DNA work necessary to put this to bed. But until that happens, this is our best scientific guess as to what species is what.

For reference, I just took these pics together under the same lighting conditions. iPhone pics, not the greatest.

Mature male G. porteri (Chilean rose)

Female G. porteri (Chilean rose) in need of a molt

Female G. rosea (Chilean red rose) in need of a molt

 

[Emotionlessness]

Thank you for the detailed reply and pictures, that makes things much clearer.

 

[Tomoran]

thevez2, thanks for great explanation and the pics. I've actually been trying to figure out the difference for a while now.

I, too, have the book in which Mr. Jacobi says they should all be called G. porteri, which I found very intriguing. I know he's a member of the boards, so perhaps he'll see this and chime in.

Regardless, it's looking as if my old G. rosea is likely a G. porteri.

 

[jecraque]

This debate goes all the way back to 2006 (possibly earlier). The Chilean rose had long been imoprted as G. rosea. Then some importers started to change the name to G. porteri. Others kept them as G. rosea. Obviously this caused a lot of confusion. Then we started to see the Chilean red rose/flame rose imported as G. rosea as well. In the hobby we referred to these as the G. rosea RCF to keep them clear.

So we have tons of different poeple coming up with all of these different color forms (normal/pink, dark/gray, red/copper), but they were all considered to be G. rosea.

Now in 2008, we start to see some of the more taxonomicaly oriented folks in the hobby doing some research and coming the the conclusion that the importers possibly had it right all along. They suggested that the red/copper form or RCF were the true G. rosea, and that all the other color forms were actually G. porteri. Many hobbyists balked and said they would wait for some more scientific evidence came around to support it, while others jumped on board.

Thevez, do you have any sources on this? Was there a redescription? It seems like color would be a really weak character to differentiate the two.

 

[thevez2]

No, there is no redescription. That would imply a change in species, that I pointed out did not happen. Let me way exaggerate this to illustrate a point.

Lets say we had some stripe kneed tarantulas coming in. One with yellow stripes and one with white stripes. They have both been imported under the name A. seemanni. Now we get a shipment of yellow striped tarantulas in but they are labeled G. pulchripes. Well it is determined that the yellow A. seemanni are the same as the yellow G. pulchripes. So we announce that the white striped is the true A. seemanni and the yellow is actually G. pulchripes. That is kinda what is happening here.

Chilean rose have been imported as G. porteri for a long time. But they get renamed in the hobby as G. rosea. That doesn't make G. rosea correct.

My source is years of reading this topic on the BTS, ATS and AB forums, going back to 2006. Search the archives and read up on it yourself. Nothing scientific has come out to prove it one way or another. But right now, this is what we are working with.

 

[Scoolman]

From the World Spider Catalogue:
m porteri (Mello-Leitão, 1936)....................Chile [urn:lsid:amnh.org:spidersp:002022]
Lasiodora p. Mello-Leitão, 1936d: 122, pl. 13 (Dm).
G. p. Schiapelli & Gerschman, 1979: 295 (Tm from Lasiodora).

 

[viper69]

So all of these are G porteri, but if it's a RCF it's G rosea? Just trying to be clear, OR are they all G porteri regardless of color?

 

[thevez2]

So all of these are G porteri, but if it's a RCF it's G rosea?

Yes, that is correct.