New publication on Aphonopelma in Arkansas

[AR-Tarantula]

Link opens PDF (large download - 5 MB).

http://naturalheritage.com/!userfiles/Aphonopelma_in_Arkansas.pdf

 

[arrowhd]

Good stuff. Thanks for the link.

 

[LeilaNami]

Question! When I was a little girl, I once saw a very large black T sitting on the wall when I lived in Arkansas. Very certain it was a T. Does that ring a bell for any species (or a few) native there? Whatever it was it was definitely not hentzi.

 

[Drachenjager]

Question! When I was a little girl, I once saw a very large black T sitting on the wall when I lived in Arkansas. Very certain it was a T. Does that ring a bell for any species (or a few) native there? Whatever it was it was definitely not hentzi.

many MM get black

 

[LeilaNami]

many MM get black

In Aphonopelma? All the MM I had pretty much retained their colors. I guess I'm confused since Aphonopelma baergi is the only tarantula described to be in Arkansas but the T I saw doesn't look like this species at all. I couldn't find a picture of a MM however.

EDIT: Well according to the pdf odelli and hentzi are there too. Would anyone happen to have a picture of odelli. Even though the publication suggests that it all might be hentzi, I'm really curious to ID the T.

 

[hamfoto]

odelli is hentzi...

 

[Kirk]

odelli is hentzi...

Is this a recent synonymy? Platnick's Catalog has odelli as still valid.

 

[LeilaNami]

Is this a recent synonymy? Platnick's Catalog has odelli as still valid.

That's kind of what I'm wondering

 

[AR-Tarantula]

I didn't formally synonymize odelli with hentzi, but you would be hard-pressed to actually identify an odelli using the scant characters described for the species by Smith. Same goes for other south-central Aphonopelma species in Oklahoma and portions of Texas. Species like A. odelli, A. wichitanum and many others will end up being just plain old A. hentzi.

It will be up to more taxonomically proficient workers than me to formally clean this all up - in fact there are folks starting up on this work now (shout out to Bond and Hendrixson labs). The next few years should really be productive as far as Aphonopelma taxonomy goes.

 

[Kirk]

I didn't formally synonymize odelli with hentzi, but you would be hard-pressed to actually identify an odelli using the scant characters described for the species by Smith. Same goes for other south-central Aphonopelma species in Oklahoma and portions of Texas. Species like A. odelli, A. wichitanum and many others will end up being just plain old A. hentzi.

It will be up to more taxonomically proficient workers than me to formally clean this all up - in fact there are folks starting up on this work now (shout out to Bond and Hendrixson labs). The next few years should really be productive as far as Aphonopelma taxonomy goes.

Great, thanks. I assume they're doing nuclear and/or mitochondrial work for populations structures? My recollection from Platnick's Catalog is that Smith (1995) based A. odelli only on a female.

 

[hamfoto]

the synonymy is not valid yet because it was a Master's Thesis...and is being worked on to get "formally" published (Elizabeth Murray - Kansas State University).

Chris

 

[Kirk]

the synonymy is not valid yet because it was a Master's Thesis...and is being worked on to get "formally" published (Elizabeth Murray - Kansas State University).

Chris

Thanks Chris. The hacking up of my dissertation for publications was a fun task :wall: . Just what I wanted - have my committee piss on it, only to then have all of it go through a slew of journal reviewers.

 

[hamfoto]

I'm sure it was fun... I'll be dealing with that this summer.

What did you get your PhD in??? and where?

C

 

[Kirk]

What did you get your PhD in??? and where?

Phylogenetic systematics of a group of sea worms (Annelida: Polychaeta: Sabellidae). Got my ph.d. from George Washington University, but spent almost all my time at the Smithsonian. My dissertation was over 600 pp., so I was able to squeeze out one monograph (chapter 1) and eight smaller publications (chapters 2-3). Then did a two-year post-doc at the American Museum of Natural History.

Congrats on finishing up. It's a great feeling finally getting through that hoop.

 

[hamfoto]

Wow! Nice job! That's some serious work...

Chris

 

[Kirk]

Wow! Nice job! That's some serious work...

Chris

What's the topic of your dissertation?