Nicaraguan or Honduran form?

Genix

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So my T. albo molted this morning. Many said that it is a Honduran form, some said that it was Nicaraguan form. But it was sold to me as Nicaraguan. Does this look like one?
 

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Wolfram1

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Wrong forum
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So my T. albo molted this morning. Many said that it is a Honduran form, some said that it was Nicaraguan form. But it was sold to me as Nicaraguan. Does this look like one?

and pls treat it as a "nicaraguan" unless its adult form doesnt look like it at all. If you are uncertain dont breed it. I made that mistake also when i got my G. rosea. Having read too many articles about how the brown form wasnt really a G. rosea and how it was really a G. porteri etc. etc. thats total bull crap, if every one renames their spiders just because they want to dabble in arachnology without reading the scientific papers descriving the species caracteristics we get all those misidentified animals that are useless to conservation efforts.

Its true that even reading up on some of them can be a little confusing as there are often multible reclassifications etc.

Turns out i cannot even read the publication on G. porteri and if i understand it correctly it doesnt have a type site ether. As such unless you buy a G. porteri don't rename your G. rosea just because someone said only the RCF is a true G. rosea. Same goes for the T. albopilosus. If you buy a T. albopilosus "nicaraguan" treat it as such and if the adult form of the spider doesn't look like a "nicaraguan" or you are uncertain simply dont breed it.

If there are acctual anatomical differences that allow you to determine if it is one or the other, like with B. smithi and B. hamorii wait for a molt and determin it that way.
 

AphonopelmaTX

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Turns out i cannot even read the publication on G. porteri and if i understand it correctly it doesnt have a type site ether.
The type locality in the original description of Grammostola porteri (as Lasiodora porteri) is Papudo, Chile. The differences between G. porteri and G. rosea being the number of stridulating lyra on the prolateral trochanter of leg 1 and retrolateral trochanter of the palps. G. porteri has more of these lyra than G. rosea. Having exuviae of adult females of both species in my collection, I can confirm the difference is very obvious when you see it. Although, when it comes to a character that can be variable, such as the count of something, one has to wonder if there are other "rose hair" Grammostola species out there in Chile and/ or surrounding countries that have the same count. Thus the number of stridulating lyra can only be useful to tell the difference between G. rosea and G. porteri, but probably can't be used as a defining character by itself when diagnosing a species of the genus Grammostola.

As far as the physical differences of T. albopilosus and T. sp. "Bronze Curly Hair" (***), the difference should be in the shape of the spermatheca. My hypothesis is that the T. sp. "Bronze Curly Hair" has twin receptacles where T. albopilosus has a single fused receptacle. I don't have any specimens of either so I can't confirm, but I seem to recall seeing a spermatheca image of the bronze curly hair and it was much different than the drawing in the original description paper of Valerio of T. albopilosus (as Brachypelma albopilosum). If anyone can start posting good quality images of the spermatheca of adult females of both species- removed from the molt, in ventral view, and from a microscope or macro lens on DSLR- then we can get to the bottom of it.

(***) I do not recognize the hobby terms "Nicaragua form" and "Honduran form" for T. albopilosus. T. albopilosus was originally described as occurring in southern Costa Rica by Valerio and whatever was imported into the pet trade as T. albopilosus from Nicaragua matches the general description of what occurs in Costa Rica therefore T. albopilosus occurs in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Whatever has been imported from Honduras, and continues to be bred in captivity, as T. albopilosus is very much different from what Valerio described from Costa Rica. For some reason someone assigned the name T. albopilosus to the ones from Honduras just because it has long curly hairs covering the body and the hobby just went with it. Until proven otherwise, I consider the white curly hairs imported from Nicaragua as T. albopilosus (the same as the ones found in Costa Rica) and the bronze curly hairs as a similar but different species.
 
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