Phoneutria nigriventer

[Steven Gielis]

Thanks for the information Stefan!
I bought this species as Phoneuria nigriventer Sao Paulo. So I was really suprised when I saw that picture on the internet named Phoneutria spec. Paraguay. As a biology student I know that color isn't the best clue to ID a species. That's just why I am interested in the ID key of Phoneutria. I am very interested in the different colour forms.

 

[Stefan2209]

Thanks for the information Stefan!
I bought this species as Phoneuria nigriventer Sao Paulo. So I was really suprised when I saw that picture on the internet named Phoneutria spec. Paraguay. As a biology student I know that color isn't the best clue to ID a species. That's just why I am interested in the ID key of Phoneutria. I am very interested in the different colour forms.

Hi Steven,

the colours and markings story in Phoneutria is at the same time interesting and frustrating:

For now, one can observe, but at least me, i can´t explain, what i observe here. I´m well aware, that there are differences, based on locations (fact), perhaps on environmental conditions (theory) and perhaps on nutrition (very weak idea).

But how will one explain such drastic differences as in the P. spec. Paraguay mom and her offsprings?
I´d shrug this off, if it´d be the same, as with C. getazi, where two different colours of youngsters come out of the very same batch, but here we´re dealing with a mother that has her very unique look and a big amount of offsprings that look all the same, but very different from the mother...

There´s still another example: P. reidyi.

Got hold of two specimen, raised them, had two males, one looked rather pink by colour, the other one rather purple.
Had other guys who kept this species ask me, what i´d fo to the spiders to make them show such "strange colours". Well, i didn´t understand that...

Got pics from specimen that had been taken in nature and found females that were just purple, so far, so ok.

Now i´ve seen females from the same batch, my males were from, they´re more brown-grey than anything else... Quite strange.

Some years back, i stumbled across pics of P. boliviensis females from Costa Rica, very bright coloured, like sand. Very beautiful to me.
Now i got hold of P. boliviensis from Peru and have to deal with a rather dark coloured spider that shows different shades of brown...

Might be interesting observations, but to me they are useless, as long as it´s just not possible to track down the exact reasons for this.
Even more interesting to me are the differences in the body-leg sizes, if the P. spec. Paraguay should indeed happen to be P. nigriventer why, why why does it show so extremely untypical body-leg ratio?

As stated in the other thread, many questions, no answers...

Merry X-Mas

Stefan